REMEMBRANCES 

of  EMERSON 


negative  vtj  J.  I.  HA\\ 


REMEMBRANCES 

«/ 
EMERSON 


BY 

JOHN  ALBEE 


NEW  YORK 

ROBERT  GRIER  COOKE 
1903 


* 


Copyright,  1901,  ^ 
John  Albee 

Copyright,  1903, 
Robert  Grier  Cooke 


REPLACING 


From  the  Press  of 
Robert  Grier  Cooke 


TO 

EDWARD  WALDO  EMERSON 


CONTENTS 

A  Day  with  Emerson  9 
Emerson  s  Influence  on  the  Young 

Men  of  his  Time  65 

Emerson  as  Essayist  133 


PREFACE 

EMERSON'S  life  and  the  influence 
of  his  books  make  a  large  subject, 
and  it  would  have  been  easily  possible 
to  have  extended  these  pages  to  a  much 
greater  length  ;  but  I  preferred  to  limit 
my  effort  and  to  condense  what  I  had 
to  say  into  a  brief  compass.  I  have  an 
aversion  to  long,  laborious  and  usually 
frigid  biographies.  Let  them  come 
from  the  heart  and  from  sincere  ad 
miration,  and  who  does  not  read  them 
with  sympathy  ?  I  prefer  Xenophon's 
artless  yet  affectionate  memories  of 
Socrates  to  the  voluminous  records  of 
Plato.  It  is  not  that  I  like  the  phil 
osopher  less,  but  the  man,  the  citizen, 
the  soldier,  the  humorist  more.  I 

[3] 


*:  :,.:/-W:      Preface 

sometimes  suspect  the  portrayal  by 
Plato,  never  that  of  Xenophon. 

It  may  be  anticipated  that  future 
readers  will  be  able  to  gather  a  clearer 
conception  of  the  man  and  the  ideas 
which  he  represented  from  the  various 
brief  personal  narratives  of  Emerson's 
contemporaries  and  witnesses  of  his  ac 
tual  influence  upon  them  than  from  the 
more  distant  and  conventional  biogra 
phies.  It  seems  to  me  also  that  the 
spiritual  history  of  the  latter  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century  is  reflected  in  Em 
erson's  life. 

I  shall  be  happy  if  I  can  contribute 
something  to  his  memory  and  fortu 
nate  in  that  this  little  book  reappears  at 
a  moment  when  it  can  join  in  the  cen 
tennial  commemorations  of  Emerson's 
birthday. 

The  following  pages  do  not  pretend 

w 


Preface 

to  be  a  new  valuation  of  Emerson,  but 
a  record  of  his  influence  and  its  effects 
upon  the  thoughtful  young  men  of  his 
time.  Neither  does  it  concern  itself 
much  with  personal  recollections,  with 
one  exception  which  may  be  pardoned 
to  the  adventurous  spirit  of  youth. 

I  call  to  remembrance  simply  the 
known  annals  of  his  life  and  work  in 
their  relation  to  my  own  generation. 

I  have  no  claim  to  long  or  intimate 
personal  acquaintance  with  Emerson. 
My  elders  and  distinguished  contempo 
raries  were  more  fortunate  than  myself 
in  this  respect ;  yet  nothing  could  pre 
vent  my  sharing  with  them  his  lectures, 
his  essays  and  poems  and  the  general  in 
tellectual  movement  which  acknowl 
edged  him  as  its  leader.  By  a  sort  of 
instinct,  or  whatever  it  may  be  called, 
I  did  not  fail  to  become  possessed  with 

[si 


Preface 

the  whole  spirit  and  productions  of  that 
movement.  Thus  one  comes  to  the  be 
lief  that  it  is  indifferent  where  he  dwells 
or  what  his  fortune;  if  he  have  any 
center  in  himself  there  is  for  him  also 
a  circumference  with  unnumbered  radi 
ating  lines  from  one  to  the  other,  on 
whose  paths  all  that  toward  which  his 
nature  most  inclines  may  freely  and 
prosperously  pass. 

Thus  believing  and  with  no  personal 
assumption  I  call  what  I  have  written 
Remembrances  of  Emerson. 


[6] 


A  DAY  tTITH  EMERSON 


A  DAY  WITH  EMERSON 

is  natural  to  wish  for  person 
al  communication  with  great 
men.  We  are  drawn  to  them  as 
to  a  finer  climate.  Young  men  seek  them 
with  an  instinctive  hope  of  receiving  a 
direct  gift  which  will  brighten  them 
selves  with  some  beam  of  greatness ; 
older  men  divine  that  only  so  much  as 
they  take  with  them  will  they  carry 
away.  The  confidence  of  youth  is 
nobler  if  more  inexperienced.  In  go 
ing  to  celebrated  persons  results  of  a 
singular  sort  are  disclosed ;  among 
them  disappointment  and  mortifica 
tion.  Youth  recognizes  enough  of 
greatness  to  discover  its  own  littleness. 
It  finds  that  it  cannot  come  very  near 

[9] 


:  Remembrances  of  Emerson 

the  great  man  because  as  yet  it  has  no 
orbit  of  its  own.  At  a  distance  all  is 
compensated  by  the  imagination.  At 
a  distance  we  figure  a  magnificence  in 
the  presence  and  affairs  of  genius. 
What  chagrin  to  find  that  possibly  it 
has  dirty  hands  and  big  feet,  eats  with 
a  knife,  with  many  uncomfortable 
manners  to  balk  the  predisposed  ad 
mirer.  When  the  genius  is  predomi 
nant  it  retires  to  its  adytum,  whither 
we  cannot  follow ;  we  cannot  surprise 
it  in  the  act  of  being  a  genius ;  we 
remain  on  the  outside  with  its  follies, 
or  flattering  equalities.  We  feel  a 
shadow  of  regret  to  see  the  man  whose 
pages  suggest  only  the  fairest  ideals 
living  subject  to  most  of  the  vulgar 
conditions  which  torment  mankind. 
Prudence  hints  that  it  would  be  wise 
to  keep  away.  But  we  cannot ;  we 

[10] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

must  embrace ;  we  must  have  speech 
with  the  being  so  like,  so  unlike,  what 
we  are.  If  we  cannot  approach  the 
god  on  his  mountain,  we  may  catch 
him  tending  his  sheep  or  frolicking 
on  all-fours  with  his  children. 

There  was  more  congruity  in  the 
presence  and  conversation  of  Emerson 
with  the  ideal  one  naturally  formed  of 
him  than  we  usually  find  in  our  per 
sonal  intercourse  with  famous  writers. 
I  think  this  is  partly  the  cause  of  the 
powerful  impression  he  made  upon  his 
contemporaries.  His  manner  of  life, 
the  man  himself,  was  at  one  with  his 
thought ;  his  thought  at  one  with  its 
expression.  There  were  no  paradoxes, 
none  of  the  supposed  eccentricities  of 
genius,  to  furnish  the  intolerable  ana 
for  future  literary  scavengers.  He 
spoke  of  Nature  not  to  add  an  elegant 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

ornament  to  his  pages ;  he  lived  near  to 
her.  In  meeting  him  the  disappoint 
ments,  if  any  there  were,  one  found 
in  himself.  For  he  measured  men  so 
that  they  became  aware  of  their  own 
stature,  not  oppressively,  but  by  a  flash 
ing,  inward  self-illumination,  because 
he  placed  something  to  their  credit 
that  could  not  stand  the  test  of  their 
own  audit. 

The  little  contribution  I  wish  to 
make  to  the  Emerson  memorabilia  con 
cerns  a  time  so  remote  that  I  may  be 
pardoned  its  personalities.  It  concerns 
a  time  which  now  seems  like  a  dream ; 
and  yet  it  was  the  time  when  a  cher 
ished  dream  of  youth  was  fulfilled.  It 
concerns  a  boy  who  had  never  heard 
of  Emerson  until  he  read  "  Repre 
sentative  Men  "  ;  who  could  find  none 
to  tell  him  whether  the  book  was  by 

[12] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

a  living  or  dead  writer,  whether  by  an 
American  or  Englishman;  and  in  vain 
did  he  seek  for  some  one  who  had 
read  it  and  could  sympathize  with  his 
own  feeling  in  regard  to  it.  Fortu 
nately  ;  for  if  that  little  Puritan  com 
munity  to  which  the  boy  belonged 
had  known  Emerson  he  would  have 
been  anathema,  and  the  boy's  troubles 
would  have  begun  prematurely.  Com 
munities  and  churches  now  claim  the 
dead  sage ;  formerly  they  would  not 
tolerate  even  those  who  read  him  in 
silence.  How  much  we  are  changed 
before  we  change.  How  often  we 
forget,  forgive  and  at  last  praise  what 
we  once  condemned.  It  became  the 
fashion  to  listen  to  Emerson's  lectures 
and  to  ask  what  they  meant ;  or  to 
refer  to  some  one  who  professed  to 
understand  them.  The  enchantment 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

of  his  voice  and  presence  moved  nearly 
all  auditors  to  a  state  of  exaltation  like 
fine  music,  and  like  the  effects  of 
music  it  was  a  mood  hard  to  retain. 
It  needed  a  frequent  repetition,  and 
those  who  heard  him  oftenest  at 
length  became  imbued  with  the  spirit 
of  his  teachings  and  could  appropriate 
as  much  as  belonged  to  them ;  and 
some  who  doubtless  carried  away  but 
little  were  self-pleased  and  thought 
they  saw  a  new  light.  A  small  farmer 
of  Concord  told  me  proudly  that  he 
had  heard  every  one  of  Emerson's  lec 
tures  delivered  in  that  town ;  and  after 
a  moment's  hesitation  he  added,  "  And 
I  understood  'em,  too."  I  believed 
him ;  for  there  is  something  superior 
to  speech  revealed  to  the  ignorant. 

I  remember  a  day  when  I  stood  idly 
over  a  counter  looking  at  the  backs  of 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

what  seemed  to  be  newly  published 
books.  I  drew  out  one,  bound  in  plain 
black  muslin.  Its  title,  "Representative 
Men,"  attracted  me,  because  I  had  just 
been  reading  Plutarch's  Lives,  and  for 
the  first  time  had  been  aroused  by  the 
reading  of  any  book.  Those  Greek  and 
Roman  men  moved  my  horizon  some 
distance  from  its  customary  place.  The 
titles  of  the  books  were  at  least  cousins, 
and  I  wondered  if  there  had  been  any 
representative  men  since  Epaminondas 
and  Scipio.  I  opened  the  volume  at 
the  beginning,  "  Uses  of  Great  Men/' 
and  read  a  few  pages,  becoming  more 
and  more  agitated,  until  I  could  read 
no  more.  It  was  as  if  I  had  looked 
in  a  mirror  for  the  first  time.  I 
turned  around,  fearful  lest  some  one 
had  observed  what  had  happened  to 
me ;  for  a  complete  revelation  was 


Remembrances  of  ILmerson 

opened  in  those  few  pages,  and  I  was 
no  longer  the  same  being  that  had 
entered  the  shop.  These  were  the 
words  for  which  I  had  been  hunger 
ing  and  waiting.  This  was  the  educa 
tion  I  wanted  —  the  message  that  made 
education  possible  and  study  profitable, 
a  foundation  and  not  a  perpetual  scaf 
folding.  These  pages  opened  for  me 
a  path,  and  opened  it  through  solid 
walls  of  ignorance  and  the  limit 
ing  environment  of  a  small  country 
academy. 

All  that  is  now  far,  far  away,  and 
seems,  indeed,  an  alien  history ;  yet, 
however  much  one  may  have  wan 
dered  among  famous  books,  it  would 
be  ungrateful  not  to  remember  the  one 
book  which  was  the  talisman  to  all  its 
fellows.  The  first  work  we  read  with 
an  ardent  mental  awakening  teaches  us 
[16] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

how  to  read,  and  gives  to  us  a  power 
of  divination  in  the  choice  of  reading. 
One  by  one  we  grapple  with  these 
books,  exhaust  their  first  magical  in 
fluence  over  us,  and  by  these  assimila 
tions  build  up  our  own  structure. 

I  should  be  glad  to  read  Emerson's 
volumes  again  for  the  first  time ;  I  can 
not  recover  the  old  sensation.  I  open 
them  memorially.  Perchance,  I  may 
like  the  author  I  am  reading  better ;  but 
Emerson's  generative  power  one  recog 
nizes  in  many  a  successor.  If  you  have 
lived  in  and  through  his  volumes  you 
never  will  be  satiated  while  there  is  still 
in  the  world  a  good  book  to  be  read  or 
to  be  written.  They  create  an  immor 
tal  appetite  and  expectation. 

I  closed  the  volume  of  "  Representa 
tive  Men"  and  put  it  back  in  its  place, 
but  I  could  not  leave  it  there,  nor  could 

[17] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

I  afford  to  purchase  it.  I  inquired  the 
price.  "  Seventy-five  cents/'  was  the 
answer.  That  was  a  princely  sum  to 
the  poor  student  who,  to  eke  out  his 
schooling,  received  just  that  amount  per 
week  for  delivering  a  daily  newspaper 
to  sundry  subscribers.  The  glance  the 
clerk  gave  my  shabby  coat  indicated  he 
had  measured  my  poverty.  I  fingered 
the  money  reluctantly,  yet  not  seeing  any 
other  copy  of  the  book  and  fearing  that 
if  I  lost  this  opportunity  I  might  never 
see  it  again,  I  could  no  more  resist  the 
inclination  to  possess  it  than  to  drink  at 
a  spring  when  thirsty.  The  true  value 
of  money  depends  upon  that  for  which 
you  exchange  it,  as  I  have  always  found 
when  it  is  exchanged  for  a  good  book. 
If  you  draw  a  mark  of  equality  between 
"Representative  Men"  and  seventy-five 
cents  you  will  see  how  much  richer  I 
[,8J 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

was  with  the  book  than  with  the  money. 
This  was  the  first  volume  that  I  bought 
with  my  own  money,  and  none  since  has 
educated  me  so  much  and  none  now 
pleases  me  so  well  to  see  with  its  broken 
back  and  bent  corners,  its  general  look 
of  shabbiness,  worn  with  much  packing 
and  travel,  and  its  scribblings  on  the  wide 
margins  made  in  the  days  when  I  read 
it  with  ambitious  zeal  and  began  to  feel 
wise  and  melancholy,  and  even  to  think 
I  could  piece  out  Emerson's  sentences 
with  reflections  of  my  own. 

I  read  this  book  until  I  had  drawn 
out  as  much  as  there  was  for  me  at  that 
time.  It  seemed  to  be  written  for  me. 
Youth  is  full  of  remarkable  discoveries 
and  affinities.  Nothing  looks  its  hoary 
age,  nor  hints  to  fresh  young  life  that 
his  is  not  a  peculiar  experience,  but  is 
merely  one  of  the  unnumbered  coinci- 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

dences  in  human  existence ;  otherwise 
we  should  be  born  old,  or  seeing  the 
monotonous  revolution  should  not  wish 
to  live.  We  begin  with  an  enormous 
appetite  for  the  spectacle,  and  soon 
wish  to  become  a  part  of  it.  Every 
thing  solicits  us  to  be  an  actor,  even  our 
dreams.  I  did  not  comprehend  "  Repre 
sentative  Men"  in  the  sense  of  mastering 
the  printed  page;  but  what  one  finds  in 
books  is  not  always  a  comprehension  of 
them;  it  is  sometimes  provocation,  the 
winged  impulse  toward  the  light,  toward 
mental  activity  and  self-expression  and  a 
communion  with  all  that  is  strong  and 
lovely.  To  this  end  some  books  seem 
to  designate  themselves  with  an  especial 
character  and  emphasis. 

It  was  not  long  before  other  of  Em 
erson's  writings  came  to  light;  and  I 
cannot  help  remarking  here  how  an 

[20] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

ingenuous  and  instinctive  appetite  is 
fated  to  find  its  congenial  nutriment. 
What  belongs  to  us  is  also  seeking  us. 
Emerson  was  the  prophet  of  young  men, 
and  his  voice  had  the  marvellous  faculty 
of  reaching  them  in  the  most  obscure 
and  unexpected  places.  Usually  this 
was  followed  by  some  sort  of  personal 
intercourse.  The  enterprise  of  young 
men  is  to  possess  the  thing  they  love. 
Possession  cools  this  ardor,  and  soon 
enough  we  care  for  the  book  rather  than 
the  author,  when  we  can,  unhindered 
by  the  intoxicating  personality,  calmly 
weigh  its  work.  I  believe  Emerson 
liked  to  meet  those  whom  his  books  had 
reached  and  moved.  He  was  always  ac 
cessible  and  gracious.  His  manners  — 
how  shall  one  speak  justly  of  them  ! 
They  were  those  of  the  finest  women  one 
has  ever  seen  or  heard,  blended  with  those 

CM] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

magnificent  moments  in  the  lives  of  an 
cient  sages  and  demigods  which  make 
the  ideals  of  human  intercourse.  They 
were  triumphant  and  just  a  little  oppress 
ive  in  their  novelty  until  one  had  ad 
justed  himself  to  them.  His  presence 
and  conversation  were  a  few  more  pages 
out  of  the  essays  on  Heroism,  Poetry, 
Love,  Circles  and  Great  Men ;  so  that 
when  you  arrived  at  his  door  you  en 
tered  the  same  house  that  you  left  behind 
in  his  books. 

After  I  had  read  in  Emerson  for  some 
time  I  had  the  boldness  to  write  to  him 
and  the  good  fortune  to  be  answered.  In 
my  note  I  had  solicited  his  opinion  in 
regard  to  college  education.  I  will 
quote  so  much  of  his  reply  as  is  not  per 
sonal  :  "  To  a  brave  soul  it  really  seems 
indifferent  whether  its  tuition  is  in  or  out 
of  college.  And  yet  I  confess  to  a  strong 

[22] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

bias  in  favor  of  college.  I  think  we 
cannot  give  ourselves  too  many  advan 
tages  ;  and  he  who  goes  to  Cambridge 
has  free  the  best  of  that  kind.  When 
he  has  seen  their  little  all  he  will  rate 
it  very  moderately  beside  that  which  he 
brought  thither.  There  are  many  things 
much  better  than  a  college  ;  an  explor 
ing  expedition  if  one  could  join  it;  or 
the  living  with  any  great  master  in  one's 
proper  art ;  but  in  the  common  run  of 
opportunities  and  with  no  more  than  the 
common  proportion  of  energy  in  our 
selves,  a  college  is  safest,  from  its  liter 
ary  tone  and  from  the  access  to  books 
it  gives  —  mainly  that  it  introduces  you 
to  the  best  of  your  contemporaries.  But 
if  you  can  easily  come  to  Concord  and 
spend  an  afternoon  with  me  we  could 
talk  over  the  whole  case  by  the  river 
bank." 

E*3l 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

I  had  not  then  the  courage  nor  the 
opportunity  to  accept  his  friendly  invi 
tation.  But  the  next  year,  being  not 
far  from  Concord,  at  the  Phillips  Acad 
emy  of  Andover,  I  thought  the  time 
had  come.  Life  there  had  become  in 
supportable  ;  I  was  ready  to  abandon 
college  education  unless  encouraged  by 
some  other  arguments  than  those  I  could 
draw  from  the  character  of  the  prepara 
tion.  My  only  intimate  at  Andover, 
William  T.  Harris,  the  philosopher,  had 
been  able  to  escape  betimes  and  left  me 
without  a  companion.  Necessity  com 
pelled  me  to  remain  if  I  wished  to  go 
to  college.  While  Harris  was  there  we 
contrived,  amid  a  crowd  of  youth  in  all 
stages  of  preparation  for  the  ministry,  to 
maintain  several  starveling  muses.  With 
two  flutes,  a  small  telescope,  much  poetry 
and  the  beginnings  of  that  philosophy 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

which  Mr.  Harris  has  since  so  splen 
didly  fulfilled,  we  nourished  our  aspira 
tions  and  all  the  indefinable  emotions 
of  youth.  We  found  or  made  tunes  to 
many  of  Tennyson's  lyrical  poems  and 
sang  them  in  our  long  walks  together 
over  the  Andover  hills,  neglecting  Ho 
mer  and  Virgil,  whom  we  were  not 
taught  to  read  for  any  purpose  save  the 
drill  in  exceptions  and  construction. 

I  had  now  a  precise  object  and  need 
of  seeing  Emerson.  I  thought  he  could 
advise  me  how  to  become  educated  and 
where.  For  the  school  offered  nothing 
I  craved.  Its  methods  were  brutal  and 
monkish ;  its  regimen,  that  is,  its  dor 
mitories  and  commons-table  had  barely 
kept  some  thousands  of  dyspeptic  alumni 
in  this  world  (and  had  sent  I  know  not 
how  many  to  the  other),  and  maintained 
thereby  the  chief  bulwark  of  a  bad  creed, 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

a  bad  digestion.  One  of  its  disciples 
confessed  to  me  that  he  got  up  in  the 
morning  a  Unitarian,  but  toward  night 
the  gnawing  in  his  stomach  brought 
him  back  to  Orthodoxy. 

I  therefore  set  out  one  damp  day 
in  May,  1852,  in  search  of  the  oracle 
that  was  to  answer  my  questions  and 
be  to  me  the  voice  of  destiny.  What 
trepidations  and  misgivings  !  The  self- 
conscious  student  is  thinking  what  sort 
of  a  figure  he  will  cut ;  he  remembers 
his  youth  and  its  insignificance  to  any 
but  himself;  and  the  greatness  of  the 
great  is  vastly  exaggerated  by  the  com 
parison.  It  seemed  to  me  I  was  going  to 
speak  with  a  being,  who,  like  the  per 
son  in  Plutarch's  story,  only  conversed 
with  men  one  day  in  the  year ;  the  re 
mainder  he  spent  with  the  nymphs  and 
daemons;  and  that  day,  for  the  current 
[46] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

year,  had  been  allotted  to  me.  The 
fact  that  I  went  clandestinely,  that 
Emerson's  name  and  books  were  never 
mentioned  nor  known  by  any  one  in 
my  world,  and  that  I  was  wholly  un 
aware  of  the  other  members  of  his  cir 
cle,  called  sometimes  the  Transcenden- 
talists,  or  their  works  and  influence, 
probably  added  a  certain  zest  to  the  ad 
venture.  At  the  gate  of  the  well-known 
walk  it  would  have  been  easier  to  re 
treat  than  to  enter.  Such  is  the  expe 
rience  of  those  about  to  grasp  what  they 
have  long  awaited  and  desired.  I  went 
on,  however,  as  one  in  the  end  always 
does.  I  entered,  and  giving  my  name, 
was  welcomed  in  a  manner  that  at  once 
banished  embarrassment. 

Thoreau  was  already  there.  I  think 
he  had  ended  his  experiment  at  Walden 
Pond  some  years  before.  Thoreau  was 


Remembrances  of  Rmerson 

dressed,  I  remember,  in  a  plain,  neat 
suit  of  dark  clothes,  not  quite  black.  He 
had  a  healthy,  out-of-door  appearance, 
and  looked  like  a  respectable  husband 
man.  He  was  rather  silent ;  when  he 
spoke,  it  was  in  either  a  critical  or  a 
witty  vein.  I  did  not  know  who  or 
what  he  was;  and  I  find  in  my  old 
diary  of  the  day  that  I  spelled  his  rare 
name  phonetically,  and  heard  afterward 
that  he  was  a  man  who  had  been  a  her 
mit.  I  observed  that  he  was  much  at 
home  with  Emerson ;  and  as  he  re 
mained  through  the  afternoon  and  even 
ing,  and  I  left  him  still  at  the  fireside, 
he  appeared  to  me  to  belong  in  some 
way  to  the  household.  I  observed  also 
that  Emerson  continually  deferred  to 
him  and  seemed  to  anticipate  his  view, 
preparing  himself  obviously  for  a  quiet 
laugh  at  Thoreau's  negative  and  biting 

[28] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

criticisms,  especially  in  regard  to  educa 
tion  and  educational  institutions.  He 
was  clearly  fond  of  Thoreau;  but 
whether  in  a  human  way,  or  as  an 
amusement,  I  could  not  then  make  out. 
Dear,  indeed,  as  I  have  since  learned, 
was  Thoreau  to  that  household,  where 
his  memory  is  kept  green,  where  Emer 
son's  children  still  speak  of  him  as  their 
elder  brother.  In  the  evening  Thoreau 
devoted  himself  wholly  to  the  children 
and  the  parching  of  corn  by  the  open 
fire.  I  think  he  made  himself  very  en 
tertaining  to  them.  Emerson  was  talk 
ing  to  me,  and  I  was  only  conscious  of 
Thoreau's  presence  as  we  are  of  those 
about  us  but  not  engaged  with  us.  A 
very  pretty  picture  remains  in  my  mem 
ory  of  Thoreau  leaning  over  the  fire 
with  a  fair  girl  on  either  side,  which 
somehow  did  not  comport  with  the  sub- 

[29] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

sequent  story  I  heard  of  his  being  a  her 
mit.  Parched  corn  had  for  him  a 
fascination  beyond  the  prospect  of  some 
thing  to  eat.  He  says  in  one  of  his 
books  that  some  dishes  recommend 
themselves  to  our  imaginations  as  well 
as  palates.  "  In  parched  corn,  for  in 
stance,  there  is  a  manifest  sympathy  be 
tween  the  bursting  seed  and  the  more 
perfect  developments  of  vegetable  life. 
It  is  a  perfect  flower  with  its  petals, 
like  the  Houstonia  or  anemone.  On 
my  warm  hearth  these  cerealian  blos 
soms  expanded." 

I  never  saw  Thoreau  again  until  I 
heard  him  deliver  in  Boston  Music 
Hall  his  impassioned  eulogy  on  John 
Brown.  Meantime  the  "  Week  on  the 
Concord  and  Merrimac  Rivers "  had 
become  one  of  my  favorite  books  ;  and 
I  have  atoned  for  my  youthful  and  un- 

[30] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

timely  want  of  recognition  by  taking 
from  my  ocean  beach  a  smooth  pebble 
to  his  cairn  at  Walden.  I  gathered  the 
stone  in  the  ancient  pharmaceutical 
manner,  with  the  spell  of  one  of  Tho- 
reau's  songs : 

"  My  sole  employment   'tis  and  scrupulous 

care 
To  place  my  gains  beyond  the  reach  of 

tides  ; 
Each    smoother    pebble,    and    each    shell 

more  rare, 

Which  ocean  kindly  to  my  hand  con 
fides." 

In  the  conversation  of  an  afternoon 
and  evening  it  is  impossible  to  relate 
all  that  was  said;  one  thinks  he  never 
shall  forget  a  word  of  such  a  memo 
rable  day ;  but  at  length  it  becomes 
overlaid  in  the  chambers  of  the 
memory  and  only  reappears  when  un- 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

called  for.  I  find  set  down  in  my 
diary  of  the  day  two  or  three  things 
which  a  thousand  observers  have  re 
marked  :  that  Emerson  spoke  in  a  mild, 
peculiar  manner,  justifying  the  text  of 
Thoreau,  that  you  must  be  calm  before 
you  can  utter  oracles ;  that  he  often 
hesitated  for  a  word,  but  it  was  the 
right  one  he  waited  for ;  that  he  some 
times  expressed  himself  mystically,  and 
like  a  book.  This  meant,  I  suppose, 
that  the  style  and  subjects  were  novel 
to  me,  being  then  only  used  to  the 
slang  of  schoolboys  and  the  magisterial 
manner  of  pedagogues.  He  seldom 
looked  the  person  addressed  in  the  eye, 
and  rarely  put  direct  questions.  I 
fancy  this  was  a  part  of  his  extreme 
delicacy  of  manner. 

As  soon  as  I  could  I  introduced  the 
problem  I  came  to   propound  —  what 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

course  a  young  man  must  take  to  get 
the  best  kind  of  education.  Emerson 
pleaded  always  for  the  college ;  said 
he  himself  entered  at  fourteen.  This 
aroused  the  wrath  of  Thoreau,  who 
would  not  allow  any  good  to  the  col 
lege  course.  And  here  it  seemed  to 
me  Emerson  said  things  on  purpose 
to  draw  Thoreau's  fire  and  to  amuse 
himself.  When  the  curriculum  at 
Cambridge  was  alluded  to,  and  Emer 
son  casually  remarked  that  most  of  the 
branches  were  taught  there,  Thoreau 
seized  one  of  his  opportunities  and 
replied :  "  Yes,  indeed,  all  the  branches 
and  none  of  the  roots/'  At  this 
Emerson  laughed  heartily.  So  with 
out  conclusions,  or  more  light  than 
the  assertions  of  two  representative 
men  can  give,  I  heard  agitated  for  an 
hour  my  momentous  question. 

[33] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

At  that  period  it  seemed  to  me  men 
acquired  by  mere  industry  whatever 
talents  and  position  they  possessed. 
Anybody  could  come  to  greatness  by 
persistent  study  and  effort  ;  we  were 
to  be  self-made  men  —  that  was  the 
popular  phrase  of  the  time  —  regard 
less  of  whether  the  Creator  had  done 
little  or  nothing  for  us,  and  we 
were  constantly  reminded  of  Benjamin 
Franklin  and  that  the  way  to  the 
White  House  was  always  open  to 
the  sober  and  industrious  young  man. 
Sobriety  and  industry  and  frugality 
were  the  three  commandments  of  the 
farm  and  the  shop  ;  and  if  the  boy  left 
his  father's  field  or  bench  for  college 
or  a  profession  he  was  enjoined  to  ex 
emplify  these  principles  in  the  exercise  of 
his  intellectual  faculties  and  functions  as 
he  had  been  trained  to  do  at  home. 

[34] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

I  was  therefore  somewhat  confused 
in  my  notions  regarding  education  by 
finding  that  Emerson,  who  as  I  then 
believed  had  made  himself  a  great 
man,  was  also  college  bred.  Whether 
from  desire  to  follow  his  example,  or 
because  I  was  already  nearly  prepared 
for  college,  I  found  myself  involun 
tarily  coinciding  with  Emerson's  views 
rather  than  Thoreau's  whimsical  opin 
ions.  Yet  Thoreau  had  been  to  col 
lege  ;  but  at  some  strange  epoch  in  his 
life  he  had  broken  with  his  past  and 
many  of  the  traditions  and  conventions 
of  his  contemporaries.  He  had  resolved 
to  live  according  to  nature ;  and  had 
the  usual  desire  to  publish  the  fact  and 
explain  the  proceeding.  It  had  never, 
however,  the  tone  of  apology ;  and  it 
is  our  good  fortune  that  he  was  not 
too  singularly  great  to  feel  the  need 

[35] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

of  communicating  himself  to  his  kind. 
Never  has  any  writer  so  identified  him 
self  with  nature  and  so  constantly 
used  it  as  the  symbol  of  his  interior 
life.  It  is  sometimes  difficult  to  dis 
tinguish  Thoreau  from  his  companions, 
the  woods,  the  woodchucks  and  musk- 
rats,  the  birds,  the  pond  and  the  river. 
An  inspired  prescience  foretold  where 
to  find  the  flower  he  wanted,  and  how 
to  lure  the  little  Musketaquid  perch  to 
his  hand.  Rare  plants  bloomed  when 
he  arrived  at  their  secret  hiding-places 
as  if  they  had  made  an  appointment 
with  him  ;  and  the  birds  knew  their 
lover's  old  cap  and  never  mistook  his 
telescope  for  a  gun.  In  his  inter 
course  with  nature  his  pilot  was  some 
prophetic  thought  which  led  him  by 
sure  instinct  to  its  sympathetic  anal- 
ogon  in  nature.  It  was  natural,  there- 

[36] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

fore,  that  to  such  a  man  systems  of 
education  should  seem  hindrances  ;  they 
interposed  another's  will  across  the  track 
of  one's  native  intuitions.  To  shake 
off  such  substitutes  with  all  their  bag 
gage  was  his  prime  intention. 

Emerson,  on  the  contrary,  wished 
for  every  help  and  advantage  offered 
by  the  world  of  men,  books  and  insti 
tutions  ;  he  proposed  indeed,  that  man 
should  go  alone,  but  not  necessarily  on 
all-fours  or  on  the  stilts  of  pedantry. 
He  was  to  give  himself  all  the  avail 
able  advantages  in  order  to  measure 
himself  with  them,  and  that  he  might 
not  be  dazzled  or  embarrassed  by  illu 
sions  concerning  them.  He  began 
with  nature  and  ended  with  it ;  between 
there  should  lay  a  long  succession  of 
studies  and  adventures  which  were  to  be 
included  in  his  idea  of  culture. 

[37] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

In  his  conversation  with  me,  how 
ever,  he  spoke  more  of  men  and  books 
than  of  nature.  He  commended  Adam 
Smith's  "Moral  Sentiments";  also,  J. 
St.  John's  volume  on  "  Greek  Manners 
and  Customs."  Doubtless  he  conformed 
himself  to  his  visitor  and  became  a  bit 
of  a  pedagogue.  Then  he  talked  of 
Chaucer  with  great  enthusiasm,  and  re 
cited  some  lines  in  a  tone  and  modulation 
which  rendered  their  music  perfectly. 

"  For  him  was  lever  have  at  his  beddes  heed 
Twenty  bokes,  clad  in  blak  or  reed, 
Of  Aristotle  and  his  philosophye, 
Than  robes  riche,  — 

And  bisily  gan  for  the  soules  pray 

Of  hem  that  yaf  him  wher-with  to  scoleye." 

What  a  fine,  obsolete  word  is  "  scol 
eye";  and  how  much  we  need  to  get 
it  back  as  an  antidote  to  the  vocabu 
lary  of  college  sports. 

[38] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

Emerson  spoke  of  Plato  also,  saying 
that  it  was  a  great  day  in  a  man's  life 
when  he  first  read  "The  Banquet."  I  was 
glad  to  hear  him  say  that,  because  I  knew 
there  were  such  days,  having  had  just 
one  in  my  short  life,  and  eagerly  I  heard 
there  was  a  possibility  of  more.  He 
brought  forth  some  souvenirs  of  men 
and  literature ;  among  them  a  daguer 
reotype  of  Carlyle;  he  spoke  of  his 
physiognomy,  his  heavy  eyebrows  and 
projecting  base  of  the  forehead,  underset 
by  the  heavy  lower  jaw  and  lip,  between 
which  as  between  millstones,  he  said, 
every  humbug  was  sure  to  be  pulverized. 
The  brow  pierced  it,  the  jowl  crunched 
it.  Emerson  said,  Channing  called  his 
under  lip  whapper-jawed.  I  asked  him 
something  about  Carlyle's  manner  of 
speech,  remembering  to  have  read  some 
where  of  a  peculiar  refrain  in  his  conver- 

[39] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

sation.  Then  he  good-naturedly  imitated 
it  for  me.  Emerson  was  an  excellent 
mimic  when  he  chose  to  be.  He  said 
the  conspicuous  point  in  Carlyle's  style 
was  his  strength  of  statement.  I  think  at 
this  date  those  critics  who  can  never  see 
but  one  object  at  a  time,  and  whose  chief 
insight  is  a  comparison  of  one  creative 
gift  with  another,  were  still  insisting 
that  Emerson  was  only  the  adulterated 
echo  of  Carlyle.  In  1848  they  received 
a  broadside  from  Mr.  J.  R.  Lowell's 
"  Fable  for  Critics/1  where  he  drew  up 
in  rather  pedantic,  antithetical  form  the 
resemblances  and  contrasts  between 
Carlyle  and  Emerson.  Mr.  Lowell  went 
on,  however,  to  commit  the  same  mis 
take  in  regard  to  supposed  imitators  of 
Emerson  that  already  had  been  made  in 
regard  to  Carlyle's. 

Among  his  literary  treasures  Emerson 

[40] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

showed  me  a  folio  copy  of  Montaigne 
which  had  once  belonged  to  the  library 
of  Joseph  Bonaparte.  It  had  a  fine  en 
graving  of  Montaigne ;  under  it  the 
scales  and  the  motto,  "  £>ue  scais-je  ?  " 
—  What  do  I  know  ?  This  I  took  to  be 
the  volume  before  Emerson  when  he 
wrote,  "As  I  look  at  his  effigy  oppo 
site  the  title-page,  I  seem  to  hear  him 
say,  You  may  play  old  Poz,  if  you  will ; 
you  may  rail  and  exaggerate, —  I  stand 
here  for  truth,  and  will  not,  for  all  the 
states,  and  churches,  and  revenues,  and 
personal  reputations  of  Europe,  overstate 
the  dry  fact,  as  I  see  it ;  I  will  rather 
mumble  and  prose  about  what  I  cer 
tainly  know,  —  my  house  and  barn ;  my 
father,  my  wife  and  tenants;  my  old, 
lean,  bald  pate ;  my  knives  and  forks  ; 
what  meats  I  eat;  and  what  drinks  I 
prefer;  and  a  hundred  straws  just  asridic- 


Remembrances  of 'Emerson 

ulous,  —  than  I  will  write,  with  a  fine 
crow-quill,  a  fine  romance." 

Last  he  called  me  to  look  at  the 
single  painting  on  the  walls  of  his  study, 
a  copy  of  Angelo's  Fates.  We  looked 
at  it  in  silence.  What  had  youth  to  do 
with  those  remorseless  sisters  ?  Youth 
would  rather  have  chosen  to  ornament 
his  chamber-study  (rent  one  dollar  per 
term)  with  pictures  of  Aphrodite  and 
the  Muses.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the 
poor  student's  walls  had  not  even  paper- 
hangings —  only  endless  tapestries  of 
the  unattainable.  I  amused  myself  in 
looking  over  the  bookcases ;  and  Emer 
son  took  down  a  volume  which  he  re 
quested  me  to  read  and  keep  for  a  year. 
It  was  George  Herbert's  poems.  When 
I  returned  the  book,  mentioning  my 
profitable  hours  with  it,  Emerson  wrote 
me  a  welcome  letter  in  which  he  said, 

[42] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

alluding  to  Herbert,  "  I  am  glad  you  like 
these  old  books;  or  rather  glad  that  you 
have 

"  Eyes  that  the  beam  celestial  view 
Which  evermore  makes  all  things  new." 

He  went  on  to  say,  "  There  is  a  su- 
per-Cadmean  alphabet,  which  when  one 
has  once  learned  the  character,  he  will 
find,  as  it  were,  secretly  inscribed,  look 
where  he  will,  not  only  in  books  and 
temples  but  in  all  waste  places  and  in 
the  dust  of  the  earth.  Happy  he  who 
can  read  it,  for  he  will  never  be  lonely 
or  thoughtless  again.  And  yet  there  is 
a  solid  pleasure  to  find  those  who  know 
and  like  the  same  thing,  the  authors, 
who  have  recorded  their  interpretation 
of  the  legend,  and  better  far  the  living 
friends  who  read  as  we  do  and  compare 
notes  with  us/' 

George  Herbert  recalls  to  me  Emer- 

[43] 


Remembrances  of  ILmerson 

son's  remark  in  regard  to  the  proper 
part  of  the  day  for  study,  —  that  we 
must  be  Stoics  in  the  morning  ;  that  it 
would  do  to  relax  a  little  in  the  even 
ing  ;  and  his  quoting  in  illustration  a 
somewhat  Orphic  proverb  from  George 
Herbert's  "  Jacula  Prudentum,"  "In 
the  morning,  mountains  ;  in  the  even 
ing,  fountains." 

Besides  these  fragments  of  the  hours 
I  spent  with  Emerson,  I  find  in  my 
memoranda  that  he  held  a  light  opin 
ion  of  things  this  side  the  water  ;  that  we 
Americans  are  solemn  on  trifles  and  su 
perficial  in  the  weighty;  that  there  is 
no  American  literature ;  *  Griswold  says 
there  is,  but  it  is  his  merchandise  —  he 
keeps  its  shop.  Had  Emerson  forgotten 
the  Rev.  Cotton  Mather's  three  hun 
dred  and  eighty-two  works  ?  He  said 

1  This  was  in  1852. 

[44] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

we  needed  some  great  poets,  orators. 
He  was  always  looking  out  for  them, 
and  was  sure  the  new  generation  of 
young  men  would  contain  some.  Tho- 
reau  here  remarked  he  had  found  one, 
in  the  woods,  but  it  had  feathers  and 
had  not  been  to  Harvard  College.  Still 
it  had  a  voice  and  an  aerial  inclination, 
which  was  pretty  much  all  that  was 
needed.  "  Let  us  cage  it,"  said  Emer 
son.  "  That  is  just  the  way  the  world 
always  spoils  its  poets,"  responded  Tho- 
reau.  Then  Thoreau,  as  usual,  had  the 
last  word;  there  was  a  laugh,  in  which 
for  the  first  time  he  joined  heartily,  as 
the  perquisite  of  the  victor.  Then  we 
went  in  to  tea  in  right  good  humor.  I 
fear  that  I  was  invited  to  tea  because  I 
did  not  know  how  to  take  myself  out 
of  the  house.  I  remember  not  much  of 
the  evening's  talk.  Probably  my  meas- 
[45] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

ure  was  full ;  it  was  a  peck,  and  here 
was  a  bushel.  However,  I  have  always 
felt  that  the  silver  cup  somehow  got 
into  my  tiny  bag. 

In  subsequent  pages  I  shall  endeavor 
to  summarize  and  convey  what  Emer 
son  was  to  the  young  men  of  my  time. 
By  a  natural  affinity  we  who  were  his 
readers  soon  found  each  other.  It  was 
under  cover  of  a  partial,  general  agree 
ment  that  we  allowed  ourselves  to  feel 
that  he  spoke  for  young  men  and 
women ;  that  he  was  their  champion, 
in  the  fresh,  mysterious  impulses  of  a 
new  day;  that  he  expressed  what  they 
were  as  yet  only  feeling,  mingling  poetry 
and  philosophy  in  due  proportions  for 
their  budding  minds ;  and  that  in  per 
sonal  intercourse  with  them  he  acted  the 
part  of  a  lover,  intimating  that  they 
were  the  wisdom  and  the  inspiration  of 

[46] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

all  his  thought;  deferring  to  them  as 
superior  persons  more  newly  arrived 
from  the  empyrean;  while,  in  truth, 
they  were  indebted  to  him  for  a  certain 
beautiful  exaltation  of  purpose  and  con 
duct  which  fitted  them  to  be  his  audi 
ence,  and  the  object  of  his  solicitude  and 
admiration.  Whoever  plants  seeds  and 
afterward  enjoys  the  flower  and  fruit 
does  not  much  remember  his  toil,  so 
great  is  his  joy,  but  gives  the  whole  credit 
to  the  soil,  to  the  sun  and  to  the  shower. 

That  Emerson  was  conscious  of  his 
relation  to  the  youth  of  his  time  is 
shown  in  a  letter  to  Elizabeth  Peabody 
in  which  he  says,  "  My  special  parish  is 
young  men  inquiring  their  way  in  life/' 

And  to  Carlyle  he  writes  to  the  same 
effect :  "  As  usual  at  this  season  of  the 
year,  I,  incorrigible  spouting  Yankee, 
am  writing  an  oration  to  deliver  to  the 

[47] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

boys  in  one  of  the  little  country  col 
leges  nine  days  hence.  (This  was  The 
Method  of  Nature,  before  the  Society 
of  the  Adelphi,  Waterville  College, 
Maine,  1841.)  You  will  say  I  do  not 
deserve  the  help  of  any  Muse.  Oh,  if 
you  knew  how  natural  it  is  to  me  to 
run  to  these  places!  Besides,  I  am  al 
ways  lured  by  the  hope  of  saying  some 
thing  which  shall  stick  by  the  good 
boys." 

Emerson's  attitude  of  expectancy  and 
generous  recognition  of  the  possibilities 
of  youth  were  in  part  the  source  of 
his  intellectual  power.  Not  a  descent 
through  seven  generations  of  clergymen 
gave  it  to  him,  but  an  ascent  through 
the  long  and  broken  lines  of  loftiest 
genius  of  all  ages. 

"Nature's  bequest  gives  nothing,  but   doth 
lend: 

[48] 


di  Day  with  Emerson 

And  being  frank,  she  lends  to  those   are 
free." 

Since  the  days  of  Socrates  no  young 
men  have  been  more  fortunate  than 
those  who  came  into  the  circle  of  his 
acquaintance  and  influence.  There 
were  others,  older  and  more  conserva 
tive,  who  wished  to  gather  some  mark 
etable  fruit  from  this  elm.  There  were 
those  who  wished  to  subsidize  him  to 
some  school,  party,  or  sect.  I  think 
that  Emerson  knew  his  interlocutor,  his 
man,  very  well.  He  had  not  packed 
your  trunk,  but  he  divined  its  contents. 
He  did  not  resist  too  much;  he  did  not 
waste  his  force  in  vain  disputation,  but 
obeyed  the  Greek  verse: 

"  When  to  be  wise  is  all  in  vain,  be  not  wise 
at  all." 

And  it  has  been  related  that  he  went  to 
bed  to  escape  argument.      He  punished 

[49] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

the  Western  men  who  pressed  him  too 
hard  with  question  and  objection,  by 
reporting  that  the  St.  Louis  logicians 
rolled  him  in  the  mud  ! 

He  knew  his  man  well.  His  kind 
ness  and  tact  were  never  at  fault.  Some 
one  has  related  that  calling  on  him,  he 
fumbled  about  his  room  for  —  a  ripe 
pear !  Yes,  he  understood  when  to 
proffer  pears  and  when  ideas.  The 
Pythian  oracle  was  ambiguous  when  the 
suppliant  came  upon  a  trivial  errand. 
When  men  came  only  to  have  their 
fortunes  told,  or  to  know  how  their  ped 
dling  would  prosper,  the  response  be 
came  confused  and  diminished.  It  did 
not  know  what  to  say.  Then  men  ac 
cused  it  of  obscurity  and  prevarication. 
They  silenced  what  should  have  silenced 
them.  It  is  easy  to  be  inspired  at  a  no 
ble  demand.  As  long  as  there  are  sin- 

[50] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

cere,  earnest  seekers,  so  long  will  the 
oracles  continue  and  continue  divine. 
Emerson  refused  to  dogmatize  about 
what  is  necessarily  obscure  at  present. 
So  some  thought  the  obscurity  lay  in 
him. 

To  all  that  man  has  achieved,  and  to 
all  man's  hopes,  he  was  vividly  respon 
sive,  and  maintained  no  doubtful  posi 
tion.  In  poetry  and  nature,  wherein  he 
was  greatest,  it  is  to  be  considered  that 
the  most  perfect  imaginative  expression 
is  so  identified  with  objects  themselves 
as  to  share  in  their  mystery,  and  to  be 
capable  of  their  own  manifold  interpre 
tation.  He  discovered  a  new  method 
of  thinking  about  man  and  nature;  he 
endeavored  to  report  what  they  said  to 
him  in  their  inmost  being.  Others 
have  used  them  as  symbols  of  life ;  he 
tried  to  penetrate  the  symbol  itself. 


Remembrances  of  Turner  son 

so  serene  a  voice,  and  to  fall  down  with 
out  noise  or  commotion. 

"  A  gentle  death  did  Falsehood  die, 
Shot  thro'  and  thro*  with  cunning  words." 

Emerson  was  nearing  his  forty-ninth 
birthday  when  I  first  met  him,  —  an 
age  when  a  man  is  no  longer  young, 
yet  bears  no  marked  sign  of  years.  He 
looked  well  and  vigorous.  His  com 
plexion  was  clear  and  wholesome.  Long 
walks  on  country  roads  and  through  his 
favorite  pine-woods,  a  simple  diet,  and 
more  than  all  a  placid,  hopeful  tempera 
ment,  rendered  him  sound  in  body  and 
intellect.  I  think  he  did  not  walk  so 
much  for  mere  exercise  as  for  pleasure 
and  meditation.  His  books  take  one 
into  the  open  air  more  than  into  the 
study ;  the  sky  is  lofty  over  them,  the  path 
strewn  with  symbols.  He  knows  where 
he  treads,  and  he  observes  as  he  saunters 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

along.  He  had  good  legs  and  feet  for 
walking  and  not  too  much  body  for 
them  to  carry.  He  was  tall  and  spare ; 
his  head  was  high  and  narrow  over  the 
ears,  the  occiput  well  built  up,  which 
made  his  features  seem  large  and  promi 
nent.  I  doubt  if  a  phrenologist  would 
have  found  by  any  outward  sign  the  ge 
nius  hidden  in  that  head.  The  Del 
phic  oracle  might,  —  after  reading  his 
books.  He  was  a  simple,  plainly  dressed 
country  gentleman  in  general  appear 
ance  ;  unpretentious,  unaggressive,  read 
ily  allowing  to  every  one  his  own  place 
and  functions.  No  romances,  no  mys 
teries  attach  themselves  to  his  personal 
ity  or  to  his  memory.  When  he  jour 
neyed  up  the  Nile  in  his  last  years,  it 
was  reported  that  the  Sphinx  called  to 
him  out  of  her  sands,  "You  are  an 
other  !"  The  wit  and  the  voice  were 

[53] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

ventriloquized  from  Concord,  but  fairly 
represented  the  common  opinion  about 
Emerson. 

I  have  heard  one  pretty  incident  of 
his  early  manhood,  not  romantic  enough 
for  the  modern  Romeo,  but  sufficient 
for  the  time  and  for  Emerson.  He  was 
preaching  in  Concord,  N.  H.,  for  a  few 
Sundays,  and  became  engaged  to  a  beau 
tiful  young  woman  of  that  town.  Re 
turning  to  his  boarding-place  after  an 
evening  with  her,  he  opened  the  door 
of  the  parlor  where  the  boarders  were 
usually  gathered,  and,  pausing  on  the 
threshold,  said,  "  My  friends,  I  am  en 
gaged/'  Whereupon  some  pious  mem 
ber  of  the  company  exclaimed,  "  Praise 
God!  Let  us  sing,  'Praise  God,  from 
whom  all  blessings  flow.'  "  So  said,  so 
sang,  and  all  joined  in  the  hymn. 

How  simple  and  charming  the  man- 

[54] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

ners  of  those  days  unvexed  by  any  knowl 
edge  of  the  Sphinx  or  Brahma. 

Emerson  had  an  alert  look  in  con 
versation,  and  on  the  lecture  platform  a 
sidelong,  bird-like  poise  of  the  head,  as 
if  looking  into  the  distance,  and  listen 
ing.  His  shoulders  were  not  strongly 
built,  and  he  leaned  forward  a  little  in 
walking.  He  was  slow  of  speech,  re 
flective,  and  always  waiting  for  right 
words;  for  he  hated  repetition  and  cir 
cuitous  expression  forever  returning  up 
on  itself.  He  once  reminded  a  Harvard 
student,  who  read  a  composition  to  him, 
fashioned  in  the  usual  periodic  style,  of 
the  Spartans'  reproof  of  a  too  eloquent 
and  prolix  ambassador,  that  they  had  for 
gotten  the  first  half  of  his  speech  and 
could  make  nothing  of  the  remainder. 
Whereupon  the  orator  cut  it  down  to 
four  words ;  but  the  Spartan  fathers  said 

[55] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

two  would  have  sufficed.  Yet  Emerson 
delighted  in  a  copious  and  graphic  vo 
cabulary.  He  thought  words  sometimes 
so  beautiful  that  they  had  the  force  of 
an  action  ;  but  they  must  be  the  orna 
ment  of  thought,  —  the  thought  must 
create  them ;  and  he  has  himself  re 
vealed  the  secret  of  style,  —  "  the  best 
thoughts  run  into  the  best  words/'  In 
a  lecture  he  would  often  linger  over  a 
page,  turning  it  back  and  forth,  seem 
ing  to  lose  his  place ;  suddenly  at  the 
strong  points  he  would  come  down  with 
tremendous  emphasis,  clenched  hand,  and 
a  voice  that  thrilled  his  hearers  to  their  in 
nermost  being.  Then  a  calm  succeeded, 
and  the  relief  of  a  rustle  in  the  seats, — 
the  subdued  form  of  applause  among 
transcendental  audiences,  —  when,  re 
covering  themselves,  they  awaited  the- 
next  brilliant  outburst.  His  voice  was 

[56] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

unmatchable  by  any  I  ever  heard ;  it 
had  the  potency  and  effect  of  eloquence, 
with  not  a  single  one  of  the  traditional 
characteristics.  And  his  matter  was  just 
as  far  from  the  usual  subjects  of  the 
platform. 

Emerson  is  invariably  described  as  a 
cheerful  and  optimistic  man.  Do  you 
think  he  had  never  suffered  from  those 
blows  of  fortune  that  attend  mankind, 
and  from  which  it  rarely  escapes  ?  It 
could  not  be  ;  but  he  buried  his  sorrows 
a  little  deeper  than  other  men,  and  un 
covered  no  wounds  for  the  sake  of  a 
cheap  sympathy.  His  habitual  smile 
disarmed  inquiries  as  to  health,  his  for 
tune  and  his  sorrows.  That  serene  smile 
guarded  an  inner  chamber  more  securely 
than  an  army.  If  he  had  known  pov 
erty,  this  poor  orphan  who  drove  his 
mother's  cow  to  pasture  beyond  Boston 

[57] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

Common;  if  he  had  struggled  with  ill 
health  ;  if  he  had  suffered  the  sharpest 
anguish  of  the  heart, — the  loss  of  his 
youthful  bride  and  then  of  a  beloved 
child  (the  "  hyacinthine  boy");  if  he 
had  endured  for  many  years  the  derision 
and  all  but  persecution  of  the  so-called 
scholars,  theologians,  and  critics  of  the 
country,  he  made  no  sign  of  anger  or 
perturbation.  He  buried  all  such  acci 
dents  under  a  magnanimous  composure, 
as  under  a  mantle  of  deep,  soft  snow. 

Such  was  the  man  as  he  appeared  in 
private  and  public.  There  are  many 
photographs  of  him  at  different  periods 
of  his  life,  several  oil  and  crayon  por 
traits,  and  several  marble  and  plaster 
busts.  His  son,  E.  W.  Emerson,  thinks 
the  bust  by  the  sculptor  Morse  is  the 
most  faithful  in  portraying  certain  in 
ward  traits  of  his  being,  his  serenity  and 

[58] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

hopefulness.  As  far  as  I  know,  there  is 
no  public  monument  to  Emerson.  Har 
vard  University,  after  rejecting  him  for 
the  better  part  of  his  life,  is  about  to 
name  a  building  in  his  honor.  Our 
country  as  yet  does  not  honor  poets  and 
philosophers  with  public  monuments. 
Our  heroes  stand  in  bronze  and  marble, 
costumed  in  frock  or  tail  coats  and  high 
collars,  or  sit  on  horses  whose  fore  feet 
paw  the  upper  air,  in  danger  every  mo 
ment  of  disappearing  into  space ;  horse 
and  rider,  —  some  have  already  disap 
peared.  Emerson  builded  his  own  monu 
ment,  and  it  is  not  confined  on  any 
pedestal,  for  "  the  whole  earth  is  the 
monument  of  illustrious  men." 

Not  long  after  the  time  of  which  I 
have  been  writing,  Concord  became  a 
university  to  many  young  men.  There 
we  sat  at  the  feet  of  three  or  four 

[59] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

masters,  Emerson,  Alcott,  Thoreau.  It 
made  the  little  scholarship  of  Cambridge 
insignificant.  There  we  learned  how 
to  live ;  what  ideals  to  make  our  own  ; 
what  books  to  read ;  how  to  find  in  na 
ture  its  poetry,  its  identities  and  symbols, 
and  in  man  his  divine  part.  Optimism 
and  a  cheerful  spirit  were  rife  in  the 
Concord  air.  Wonderful  prophetic  an 
ticipations  of  the  future  filled  our  youth 
ful  hearts. 

"  Beside  us  what  glad  comrades  smiled  and 

strove ; 
Beyond  us  what  dim  visions  rose  to  view." 

Nothing  could  be  in  greater  contrast 
than  this  stimulating  atmosphere  com 
pared  with  that  of  Cambridge,  where 
every  generous  aspiration  was  stifled  by 
intolerance.  There  was  a  smart  saying 
current  in  Cambridge  about  us,  that  we 
entered  mystics  and  graduated  dyspep- 

[60] 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

tics,  and  I  think  there  was  a  middle 
term  still  more  sharp, — skeptics.  Mystics, 
skeptics  and  dyspeptics  had  the  right 
ring  to  please  the  mockers.  Dyspepsia 
was  no  doubt  the  prevailing  malady,  but 
more  honorable  than  the  scars  of  the 
athletic  field,  being  in  large  measure  the 
result  of  a  Spartan  diet,  hard  study  and 
a  slender  purse,  the  savings  of  a  believ 
ing  mother  or  toiling,  unselfish  sister. 
One  of  our  hungry,  pale-faced  compan 
ions,  anticipating  the  remedies  and  power 
of  mind-cure,  advised  not  to  let  your 
stomach  know  that  you  knew  it  had 
dyspepsia. 

Concord  was  the  exchange  for  all  the 
best  things  then  being  written  or  said, 
on  which  you  might  hear  Thoreau's 
laconic  summation,  Alcott's  genial  com 
ment,  or  rendering  into  the  Orphic  phil 
osophy,  or  Emerson's  wise  and  concilia- 
[61] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

tory  interpretations.  I  wonder  whether 
this  generation  of  young  men  envy  the 
opportunities  of  such  an  Academe.  We 
did  not  go  in  crowds,  nor  often.  It  was 
not  a  day-school,  nor  were  the  lessons 
set  and  the  professors  prepared,  and  no 
body  was  ever  graduated.  The  Con 
cord  term  might  last  as  long  as  you 
lived,  and  perhaps  longer.  Once  or 
twice  during  a  college  term,  and  after 
graduation,  an  occasional  pilgrimage  w^as 
enough  to  replenish  our  enthusiasm. 

I  salute  you,  my  brothers,  whose 
youthful  faith  in  Emerson  has  not  wav 
ered  nor  waned.  Behold  at  length  its 
consummation  and  approval  in  the  gen 
eral  applause  of  the  world. 


[62] 


EMERSON'S  INFLUENCE 

ON  THE  YOUNG  MEN 

OF  HIS  TIME 


EMERSON'S  INFLUENCE 

ON  THE  YOUNG  MEN 

OF  HIS  TIME 

HE  men  whose  youth  fell  in 
the  decade  preceding  the  civil 
war  and  who  read  books,  es 
pecially  poetry,  were  deeply  moved  on 
first  reading  Emerson.  The  feeling 
we  then  had  and  the  manner  in  which 
we  variously  expressed  it  would  even 
now,  in  the  completion  of  his  life  and 
fame,  seem  exaggerated  to  the  world 
as  indeed  it  does  to  ourselves.  Youth 
is  the  happy  time  when  comparisons 
are  not  made,  when  we  admire  with 
out  criticism,  when  the  sense  of  pro 
portion  is  dormant  and  we  are  wholly 

[65] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

possessed  by  the  spirit  of  imitation. 
There  were  very  few  of  us  who  did 
not  catch  the  style  of  his  sentences,  and 
his  ideas  immediately  became  our  own. 
They  were  reproduced  on  a  hundred 
occasions  and  we  experienced  a  deep, 
heartfelt  pride  in  our  superiority.  Some 
endeavored  to  form  their  lives  upon  his 
ideals,  not  unsuccessfully ;  others  to  dip 
their  pens  in  his  inkstand  with  the 
usual  catastrophe.  The  ease  with 
which  his  name  lent  itself  to  an  adjec 
tive, —  Emersonian, — was  a  great  com 
fort  and  convenience  to  our  critics ;  to 
define  the  term  was  more  than  they 
or  we  could  do.  When  hurled  at  us 
we  realized  it  meant  something  oppro 
brious  ;  but  when  reading  Emerson's 
books  there  was  an  exalted  mood, 
a  mental  quickening,  for  which  no 
epithet  was  good  enough.  Thus  our 
[66] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

defensive  position  was  difficult  to  hold 
though  we  justified  ourselves  in  it,  and 
we  became  more  or  less  concealed  and 
silent  except  with  sympathizers.  I  was 
looked  upon  with  suspicion  by  my 
friends  when  it  became  known  that  I 
was  a  reader  of  Emerson.  I  knew  they 
were  ignorant  of  the  contents  of  his 
books ;  yet  I  felt  conscious  of  some 
thing  not  quite  respectable  and  per 
mitted.  One  learns  later  that  innocent 
and  sensitive  persons  can  easily  be  made 
to  feel  guilty ;  and  in  New  England  at 
least  we  had  been  made  to  believe  so 
long  that  nearly  everything  which  was 
agreeable  was  sinful  that  it  had  grown 
into  a  morbid  sensibility  to  opinion. 

It  was  for  many  such  prisoners  that 
Emerson  found  a  release.  He  freed  us 
from  the  control  of  some  ancient  theo 
logical  tenets  and  led  us  to  the  simpler 

[67] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

and  still  more  ancient  moral  elements 
of  the  universe.  I  think  one  of  Emer 
son's  chief  services  to  his  countrymen 
is  and  will  continue  to  be  in  disentang 
ling  the  connection  between  forms  of 
religion  and  ethics  ;  in  once  more  plant 
ing  prostrate  man  upon  his  feet  and 
then  uplifting  his  eyes  to  the  spiritual 
beauties  and  dignities  of  life.  No 
matter  what  his  topic,  he  everywhere 
reaches  that  conclusion.  There  is  this 
thread  throughout  his  most  illogical 
pages  ;  this  central  thought  unifies  his 
unarticulated  sentences.  In  general  it 
may  be  answered  to  literary  objections, 
that  when  Emerson  is  not  a  poet  he  is 
a  prophet,  and  as  such  is  amenable  only 
to  the  canons  which  govern  deliver 
ances  of  that  kind.  It  is  perhaps  too 
early  to  pronounce  upon  Emerson's 
place  in  letters.  It  is  uncertain  whether 
[68] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

he  belongs  on  the  shelf  with  poets, 
prophets  or  moralists.  When  I  read 
his  poems  he  seems  wholly  poet ;  and 
when  I  read  "  Nature  "  and  the  earlier 
essays  he  also  seems  a  poet,  escaped 
temporarily  into  prose.  In  these  latter 
he  keeps  near  unto  the  hedge  of  his 
"  pleached  garden "  across  which  he 
constantly  coquets  with  the  Muse. 

As  to  his  style  no  one  has  yet  de 
termined  its  value  and  durable  quality. 
A  genuine  style  never  wearies ;  time, 
therefore,  and  many  generations  of 
readers  must  settle  this  question.  Tastes 
change  as  much  and  as  often  in  litera 
ture  as  in  other  things  and  with  sur 
prising  rapidity  in  our  time ;  yet  there 
is  something,  we  will  not  even  call  it 
taste,  which  does  not  change.  It  is 
that  which  is  deeper,  more  permanent 
than  taste,  seated  at  the  center  of  man's 

[69] 


Remembrances  of %  Emerson 

being  in  all  ages.  There  is  much  in 
Emerson's  mode  of  expression  which 
of  itself  challenges  attention.  It  has 
immense  elevation ;  it  goes  like  a  bird 
from  one  tree-top  to  another ;  or  as  the 
gods  talk  around  the  Olympian  peaks. 
It  is  almost  too  lofty ;  one  gasps  for  a 
less  rarified  air  and  longs  to  touch  the 
ground.  With  Emerson  one  never 
sees  anything  less  than  a  vision,  hears 
no  voice  but  that  of  the  soul ;  yes,  and 
beyond  that  the  Over  Soul.  All  is  in 
the  distance,  a  vast  perspective  lined 
with  majestic  figures  of  men  and  women 
as  they  would  be  if  they  but  knew  their 
own  worth ;  and  at  the  end  a  lofty 
temple  consecrated  to  the  moral  senti 
ments. 

In  reading  "  English  Traits  "  I  cannot 
divest  myself  of  the  feeling  that  I  am 
reading  of  a  people  much  further  re- 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

moved  than  England  and  in  no  way 
related  to  our  time  and  country  ;  they 
seem  as  distant  and  in  truth  as  dead  as 
Greeks  or  Romans,  with  such  a  cool, 
remote  and  contemplative  pencil  does 
he  paint  them.  Is  it  his  imagination 
that  produces  this  effect,  or  is  it  that 
he  sees  things  never  before  disclosed, 
and  hence  the  illusion  of  distance  and 
unfamiliarity  ?  The  essential,  national 
qualities  are  there,  but  abstracted  in 
such  a  manner  that  they  stand  out  like 
a  scientific  diagnosis  ;  the  diagnosis  is 
so  interesting  and  acute  that  the  poor 
patient  is  forgotten. 

All  of  us  in  the  days  of  our  youth 
saw  everything,  —  as  soon  as  Mr.  Emer 
son  had  seen  it  for  us.  Our  experience 
was  precisely  similar  to  his  own  with 
Montaigne.  He  says  in  one  of  the  few 
revelations  of  his  own  intellectual  his- 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

tory,  that  when  he  first  read  Montaigne 
he  felt  as  if  he  had  himself  written  the 
book.  So  we  felt  when  we  read  Emer 
son,  and  we  had  in  him  a  precedent 
which  we  much  relied  upon  and  often 
quoted.  Long  afterward  I  heard  a 
religious  enthusiast  say  that  if  some 
one  had  not  written  the  New  Testa 
ment  he  should,  and  I  understood  him 
through  a  similar  feeling  regarding 
other  books.  Often  as  this  happens  to 
the  sympathetic  reader  in  later  life, 
nothing  can  outwear  the  memory  of 
the  first  youthful  experience  of  it,  and 
very  dear  to  the  heart  is  the  volume, 
and  venerated  the  writer  at  whose  fires 
we  have  lighted  our  own  little  torch. 
There  was  in  all  this  seeming  compre 
hension  the  usual  amount  of  self-decep 
tion  and  illusion.  Emerson  shot  many 
an  arrow  beyond  our  ken ;  some  of 

[7*] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

which  perhaps  it  may  require  several 
ages  to  overtake ;  but  we  beheld  the 
superb  flight  and  thought  we  could 
see  the  mark,  for  youth  is  both  confi 
dent  and  credulous.  This  faith  kept 
and  still  keeps  some  of  us  steady  in  our 
allegiance  to  the  Emersonian  insights. 
Having  found  an  interpretation  for 
some  of  our  aspirations,  we  expected  to 
arrive  at  all  in  due  time.  We  believed 
in  Emerson's  discoveries  ;  if  you  will, 
in  his  obscurities,  and  in  whatever  we 
could  put  into  his  writing  out  of  our 
own  thought.  This  belongs  to  the 
writer  who  has  stirred  us  as  much  as 
what  he  has  actually  written  belongs 
to  him.  It  is  his  by  virtue  of  that 
first  germ  which  originates  others  and 
still  others  in  a  countless  series.  A 
good  book  is  a  book  plus  a  good  reader. 
Find  what  you  may  and  own  your  debt, 

[73] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

pay  it  and  say  as  Emerson  said  to  his 
children  when  they  asked  him  if  he 
believed  that  Shakespeare  meant  what 
they  found  to  praise  in  a  certain  sen 
tence  :  "  I  think  an  author  (or  artist) 
has  a  right  to  anything  good  that 
another  can  find  in  his  work."  All 
the  interpretations  and  implications  are 
his  as  much  as  the  limbs  are  the  tree's 
and  the  twigs,  leaves,  blossoms  and 
fruits  are  the  limb's. 

We  thought  with  Gautier  that 
"  Genius  is  always  right ;  whatever  it 
invents  exists.' '  We  listened  to  what 
ever  Emerson  said  with  a  certain 
haunting  expectation  seldom  disap 
pointed  ;  and  it  must  be  confessed  for 
a  time  we  narrowed  our  world  by 
having  no  ear  for  any  one  else ;  so  that 
we  appreciated  keenly  the  witticism  of 
a  gentleman  who,  arriving  just  too  late 

[74] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

to  hear  Emerson's  famous  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  oration  at  Cambridge,  in  1837, 
remarked  that  it  was  better  to  miss 
Emerson  than  to  hear  anybody  else. 

Emerson  has  been  a  liberal  education 
and  emancipation  to  a  large  number  of 
men  and  women  for  nearly  two  genera 
tions.  One  can  only  conjecture  whether 
young  men  and  women  are  reading  him 
to-day  with  the  enthusiasm  of  those  who 
read  forty  years  ago  and  under  a  certain 
ban  which  made  it  the  more  intoxicating. 
For  some  time  past  Emerson  has  been  in 
fashion.  It  is  doubtful  whether  an  author 
who  is  in  vogue  has  after  all  so  deep  an 
influence  as  one  who  has  gained  the  con 
centrated  and  almost  passionate  devotion 
of  a  few  readers.  Ah,  the  critics  will 
say,  this  is  the  conceit  of  the  obscure 
and  unrecognized.  But,  I  reply  for  their 
comfort  and  enlightenment  that  this  very 

[75] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

narrow  and  ardent  following  is  the  cause 
of  the  enlargement  of  the  writer's  circle 
and  is  the  way  of  a  slow  yet  triumphant 
progress  to  an  immortality  of  fame.  It 
is  certainly  true  that  Emerson  was  once 
considered  dangerous  reading ;  that  we 
who  followed  him  suffered  contempt 
from  some,  reproach  and  suspicion  from 
nearly  all,  and  that  we  are  now  justified 
and  compensated.  It  was  a  situation  for 
which  the  liberality  of  modern  opinion 
can  furnish  no  parallel,  there  being  but 
one  reason  at  present  for  consigning  a 
writer  to  the  Index  Expurgatorius, 
namely,  the  taint  of  flagrant  immorality. 
Old  beliefs  have  been  so  rent  by  a  suc 
cession  of  iconoclasts,  have  been  so  as 
saulted  by  the  progress  of  scientific  discov 
eries  that  they  have  lost  their  dogmatic 
assertiveness  and  are  no  longer  intolerant 
of  innovations  in  thought  and  custom. 

[76] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

I  have  said  that  readers  of  poetry  were 
especially  prepared  for  welcoming  Em 
erson's  writings,  the  earliest  of  which 
were  in  prose.  Poetry  emancipates 
young  men  from  their  inward  and  out 
ward  limitations ;  it  opens  to  them  an 
ideal  world  and  attaches  them  to  truth 
and  beauty.  More  than  this,  it  quick 
ens  the  latent  intellectual  life  by  putting 
into  choice  phrase  and  melodious  sound 
much  which  they  imagine  themselves 
to  have  felt,  thought  and  already  lived 
through.  It  certifies  and  establishes  a 
relation  between  their  own  incipient 
consciousness  and  that  of  the  matured 
mind,  and  lays  the  foundations  of  culture. 
Emerson's  prose  is  much  like  poetry ; 
it  wants  but  the  wide  margins  and  cap 
ital  letters.  It  has  all  the  surprises  of 
good  verse ;  it  is  rhythmical,  episodi 
cal,  sometimes  austere,  again  homely  or 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

graceful  and  nearly  always  suggestive. 
He  is  thinking  over  what  you  have 
thought ;  such  is  his  insinuating,  flatter 
ing  address.  He  seems  to  whisper,  "  I 
am  merely  the  organ ;  the  idea  is 
yours."  The  temptation  then  was 
great  among  young  men  to  try  to  find 
expression  for  themselves  ;  it  turned  out 
to  be  merely  repetition  for  the  time ; 
not  only  the  thought  but  the  language 
was  unapproachable.  The  hall-mark 
could  not  be  erased  and  another  substi 
tuted.  However,  Mr.  Lowell  suffi 
ciently  satirized  the  imitators  of  Emer 
son.  It  is  curious  to  remember  now 
that  Emerson  himself  was  arraigned  for 
an  imitative  style  and  even  for  borrow 
ing  his  ideas.  But  who  has  not  been  ? 
Plato  was ;  and  those  who  have  not 
been  are  not  remembered.  "  The  great 
est  genius  is  the  most  indebted  man/' 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

An  aptitude  for  assimilation  is  one  form 
of  genius,  often  mistaken  for  imitation 
and  plagiarism  by  those  who  forget  that 
there  is  and  can  be  no  more  material 
than  there  ever  was  and  that  art  alone 
endures : 

"  The  bust  outlasts  the  throne, 
The  coin  Tiberius." 

Emerson's  poetry  was  more  difficult 
to  imitate  than  his  prose ;  yet  they  are 
so  essentially  alike  in  tone  and  thought 
that  whoever  admires  one  will  be  apt  to 
appreciate  the  other.  It  is  safe  to  say 
that  nearly  all  the  young  men  who  took 
Emerson  for  a  master,  either  wrote  or 
soon  began  to  write  poetry.  Here  a 
man  finds  his  true  level ;  he  may  be 
equal  to  intelligent  reading  and  com 
plete  appreciation  of  poetry,  but  when 
he  attempts  to  produce  it  he  may  find 
himself  truly  empty.  He  discovers  that 

[79] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

his  effort  no  more  resembles  the  self 
which  seemed  to  be  actively  present 
when  he  was  reading  the  work  of  the 
creative  imagination  than  letters  formed 
with  his  left  hand  resemble  his  most 
careless  right-handed  autograph.  This 
also  was  a  discipline  for  which  we  were 
much  indebted  to  Emerson.  Many  paths 
must  be  tried  and  many  must  be  aban 
doned  ere  one  finds  himself.  Some  of 
the  Emersonian  disciples  have  struggled 
on  with  the  muse  and  have  added  to 
the  music  of  the  world;  most  became 
silent  when  they  entered  into  active  life. 
His  verse  rarely  touches  the  common 
elements  of  the  poetic  domain  ;  it  has 
little  warmth,  no  sensuousness,  no  pas 
sion  ;  but  it  does  have  wisdom,  reflec 
tion,  beautiful  perceptions,  clear,  chaste 
and  often  perfect  expression,  stanzas  and 
lines  that  cling  in  the  memory  with  the 
[80] 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

sweetest  and  best.  When  I  say  little 
warmth  I  mean  in  comparison  with  the 
more  popular  orders  of  poetry  which 
celebrate  the  domestic  affections,  suffer 
ings  and  joys,  the  nursery,  the  grave, 
the  raptures  of  lovers  with  the  attendant 
tragedy  and  comedy  of  passion.  But  I 
am  reminded  by  a  friend,  and  a  more 
competent  judge  than  myself,  that  Em 
erson's  poems  have  "  sun-heat."  That 
description  pleases  me  more  than  my 
own,  and  every  reader  will  be  able  to 
compute  for  himself  the  distinctions 
between  "  sun-heat "  and  its  innumer 
able  substitutes.  His  poems  repeat  a 
great  deal  that  is  in  the  "  Essays  "  in 
another  form.  Emerson's  taste  for  the 
poetry  of  other  poets  was  just  a  trifle 
peculiar ;  he  loved  what  we  all  love  and 
a  little  beside.  I  believe  he  was  fond  of 
some  books  of  poetry  for  other  things 
[81] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

than  their  poetry.  One  good  word  some 
times  was  sufficient  to  attract  him.  He 
gave  a  generous  welcome  to  everything 
which  called  itself  verse.  This  indeed 
was  his  noblest  intellectual  trait,  his 
magnanimous  recognition  of  the  work 
of  others  and  his  open,  liberal  praise  and 
faith  in  it.  And  I  think  no  one  ever 
came  into  personal  contact  with  him 
without  a  renewed  confidence  in  his 
own  possibilities. 

In  his  selection  of  poetry  entitled 
"  Parnassus "  there  seems  on  a  cursory 
glance  nothing  very  distinctive;  but 
reading  more  carefully  one  finds  here 
and  there  the  strangest  and  most  unex 
pected  evidences  of  his  poetical  proclivi 
ties.  I  recall  an  epigram  on  this  feature 
of  the  collection: 

Some  bards  are  here  and  some  are  not, 
Either  unknown  or  else  forgot ; 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

And  some  are  here  elsewhere  unknown 
Save  to  themselves  and  Emerson. 

But  with  the  immortals  do  not  class  us 
For  an  idle  hour  on  Mount  Parnassus. 

The  books  a  man  likes  are  of  a  piece 
with  his  general  sympathies.  Emerson 
was  a  wide,  miscellaneous  reader  and 
had  an  eagle  eye  for  what  pleased  him 
and  made  it  his  own.  His  quotations 
are  as  striking  as  the  text.  When  was 
a  line  of  poetry  hitherto  almost  un 
known  more  aptly  chosen  and  set  in 
such  royal  position  as  that  one  which 
closes  the  Essay  on  Montaigne  ? 

"  If  my  bark  sink  'tis  to  another  sea." 

It  has  been  quoted  a  hundred  times 
since,  not  once  before;  I  have  seen  it 
used  even  as  a  prose  sentence.  His 
quotations  incited  one  to  good  reading, 
since  they  were  gathered  from  the  best 
books  of  all  ages  and  countries.  Com- 

[83] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

ing  to  them  you  found  that  Emerson 
had  often  appropriated  the  only  gem. 
Since  both  he  and  Thoreau  found  close 
at  hand  much  that  was  admirable,  the 
great  in  the  little,  the  universe  in  the 
Concord  microcosm,  it  became  the  fash 
ion  among  theTranscendentalists  to  hunt 
for  the  obscure  and  unrecognized,  and 
to  proclaim  a  discovery.  I  know  not 
how  many  great  but  unknown  geniuses 
arrived  and  departed  each  year  at  Con 
cord.  Young  men  came  from  all  parts 
of  the  world,  and  those  who  could  not 
come  —  wrote!  We  who  were  nearer 
made  frequent  pilgrimages  alone  or  in 
companies.  He  received  us  each  and 
all  with  his  unfailing  suavity  and  def 
erence.  His  manner  toward  young  men 
was  wonderfully  flattering;  it  was  a 
manner  I  know  no  word  for  but  ex 
pectancy;  as  if  the  world-problem  was 

[84] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

now  finally  to  be  solved  and  we  were 
the  beardless  CEdipuses  for  whom  he 
had  been  faithfully  waiting.  Bursting 
with  things  we  had  locked  up  in  our 
bosoms  and  which  we  thought  it  would 
be  so  easy  to  say,  silence  and  vacuity  be 
numbed  us  on  arriving  in  the  presence 
of  the  poet  and  prophet.  His  magnan 
imous  spirit  soothed  and  reassured  us; 
and  to  the  little  we  brought  he  added  a 
full  store,  inserting,  as  I  have  said,  a  sil 
ver  cup  in  our  coarse  sacks  of  common 
grain,  so  that  we  returned  to  our  brethren 
with  gladness  and  praise.  Yet  what  disap 
pointments  he  must  have  suffered.  What 
trials  of  patience  and  hospitality.  What 
self-restraints  in  the  visits  of  friendly 
though  fatal  "devastators  of  the  day."  x 

xHe  once  protested  against  an  introduction  say 
ing,  "  Whom  God  hath  put  asunder  let  no  man 
join  together." 

[85] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

"  To  try  our  valor  fortune  sends  a  foe ; 
To  try  our  equanimity  a  friend." 

He  bore  all  with  a  gentle  serenity 
and  doubtless  extracted  from  fools  and 
bores  some  wise  or  witty  thought.  The 
nearest  he  ever  came  to  dismissing  a 
visitor  was  when  a  strenuous  Miller- 
ite  called  and  attempted  to  win  Emer 
son  to  his  belief.  Urging  that  the 
world  was  surely  about  to  come  to 
an  end  Emerson  replied,  "  Well,  let 
it  go;  we  can  get  on  just  as  well  with 


out  it." 


Yes,  he  could  do  very  well  without 
it  and  must  often  have  done  so.  Oc 
casionally  he  paid  the  world  a  friendly 
visit;  for  the  most  part  like  all  great 
spirits  he  seems  to  have  been  a  lonely 
man.  At  death  he  entered  upon  no 
uncertain  experience.  To  our  question, 
what  shall  we  do  without  him?  let 
[86] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

himself  answer :   "  Great  men  exist  that 
there  may  be  greater  men." 

I  have  always  wished  to  explain  the 
influence  of  Emerson  on  the  young  men 
of  my  time;  and,  since  his  active  life 
covered  the  period  which  was,  without 
dispute,  an  intellectual,  political  and  re 
ligious  crisis,  I  may  be  permitted  to  in 
clude  in  it  some  account  of  the  attitude 
and  experiences  of  my  youthful  con 
temporaries,  too  immature  for  actual 
participation  in  affairs  or  the  expression 
of  themselves  in  writing.  They  were 
in  the  plastic  stage,  tormented  by  spir 
its  of  discontent  and  fascinated  by  vis 
ions  of  high  ideals  of  life.  They  were 
like  a  flock  of  birds  which  a  gun  has 
startled  from  an  old  haunt  and  who 
hover  uncertain,  perplexed  where  next 
to  alight.  I  was  myself  one  of  such  a 
flock  and  I  remember  well  the  gun  and 

[87] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

the  flash  which  frightened  us  and  scat 
tered  us,  some  to  Emerson,  some  to 
Theodore  Parker,  others  to  Garrison 
and  Fourier ;  while  many,  perhaps  most, 
returned  in  a  little  while  to  their  former 
associations ;  yet  never  to  be  quite  what 
they  were  before.  A  few  reacted  so 
violently  as  to  entrench  themselves  only 
more  firmly  in  the  absolutism  and  final 
ity  of  the  existing  institutions  —  the 
Bible  as  interpreted  by  the  doctors  of 
theology  ;  the  Constitution  as  expounded 
by  Webster  and  Taney  and  Calhoun, 
and  they  reasserted  the  claims  of  the 
literature  of  the  last  two  centuries. 

The  clocks  of  the  churches  had  run 
down.  They  no  longer  struck  the  pres 
ent  hour ;  the  hands  were  fixed  as  mo 
tionless  as  those  on  the  dummy  clocks  of 
the  watchmakers.  We  wended  our  way 
to  the  Sunday  service  full  of  doubts  and 
[88] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

returned  more  and  more  confirmed  in 
them.  The  devil  and  hell  and  the  Jews 
were  constant  parables  of  our  own  sinful 
natures;  and  out  of  an  indiscriminate 
indictment  but  one  single  path  was 
shown  from  the  fall  of  man  to  his  sal 
vation.  Ever  the  path  of  salvation  for 
man  is  narrow,  and  it  is  a  lone  and  soli 
tary  one.  There  is  no  crowd  there, 
driven  by  fears  or  promises  and  mar 
shalled  by  banners  with  a  single  inscrip 
tion, —  "this  world  or  the  other/'  I 
remember  the  weight  of  human  de 
pravity  was  summed  up  in  that  vague 
term  so  constantly  on  the  lips  of  preach 
ers,  "the  world."  Listening  to  them  I 
associated  it  with  something  monstrous, 
forbidden  and  as  fearful  as  the  darkness 
and  hobgoblins  are  to  childhood.  As 
the  concrete  is  ever  the  characteristic  of 
childish  imagination,  I  at  first  supposed 

[89] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

it  was  some  place  beyond  the  Mendon 
Hills,  which  then  bounded  my  horizon. 
Had  the  preacher  been  there  ?  How  did 
he  dare?  Had  it  any  real  existence,  this 
"world"  of  the  pulpit?  It  was  painted 
in  deepest  colors  and  so  overdrawn  that 
like  Milton's  Satan  I  felt  more  interest 
in  it  than  in  the  saints  and  their  heaven. 
I  had  a  great  curiosity,  inspired  by  the 
emphasis  on  the  word  and  the  all  too 
attractive  description,  to  see  it  for  my 
self. 

As  a  seeker  after  this  glittering,  seduc 
tive  iniquity  for  many  years  I  have  never 
been  able  to  find  it  in  that  absolute  and 
pure  estate  postulated.  Such  of  its  for 
bidden  fruit  as  I  have  plucked  I  have 
found  tolerably  sweet  and  wholesome 
and  but  little  more  than  a  convenient 
figure  of  speech  for  the  exhorter. 

Emerson  had  walked  out  of  church 

[90] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

with  the  utmost  gentleness  and  defer 
ence  and  established  his  tabernacle  by 
the  Concord  wayside.  There  without 
noise  or  violence  he  continued  to  preach 
the  word  which  liberated  me  and  my 
contemporaries  from  our  spiritual  bond 
age  and  resolved  our  negations  into 
affirmations.  For  the  faith  that  was  in 
us  we  employed  no  logic;  we  made 
when  necessary  a  new  affirmation. 
Thus  without  revolution  or  turmoil  a 
force  came  into  the  world  which  ere  it 
was  aware  had  undermined  the  ancient 
New  England  error.  There  was  a  lit 
tle  controversy,  and  those  who  kept  the 
shew-bread  of  Unitarianism  at  Cam 
bridge  were  at  first  startled  into  an  ex 
clamation  which  sounded  like  "  athe 
ism  ";  but  it  subsided  slowly  and  it  is 
now  a  long  time  silent.  Atheism  was 
the  first  alarm  sounded  and  as  usual 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

came  from  the  seats  of  learning, — those 
seats  where  men  sit  too  long  and  softly. 
This  fearful  word  was  next  softened  into 
pantheism,  then  to  German  mysticism, 
Neo-Platonism ;  and  many  other  epithets 
were  experimented  with  by  clerical  and 
literary  reviewers,  until  it  was  finally 
mellowed  into  Transcendentalism,  where 
their  bewildered  pens  found  rest.  The 
Unitarian  clergy  were  and  have  always 
been  a  company  of  cultivated  men, 
rather  independent  thinkers,  and  already 
without  the  pale  of  canonical  churches, 
it  was  easy  for  them  to  take  a  forward 
step.  One  by  one  they  and  their  fol 
lowers  accepted  Emerson  as  the  prophet 
of  a  new  spirit  in  religion ;  prophet  also 
of  a  new  insight  into  nature,  into  his 
tory,  into  conduct,  and  the  poet  of  the 
ideal  in  all  human  relations  and  activi 
ties.  Whether  the  Emersonian  insights 

[9*] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

and  ideals  were  altogether  new  and  orig 
inal  is  immaterial.  From  everlasting 
to  everlasting,  truth  and  beauty  exist  the 
same.  They  do  become  dull  and  trite 
by  reiteration  in  a  traditional  language 
and  require  from  time  to  time  a  fresh 
statement.  This  Emerson  gave  us  in  a 
rich  and  striking  form,  unencumbered 
by  prolixity,  logic  or  authorities.  He 
took  the  shorter  way  to  men's  minds, — 
the  road  of  the  self-illuminated  spirit 
speaking  to  the  highest  in  other  selves. 
Many  voices  in  time  echoed  his 
messages  and  continue  in  these  days 
their  response  from  the  pulpit  and  the 
press.  I  meet  his  sentences  or  verses  as 
the  mottoes  of  books,  on  calendars  and 
Farmers'  Almanacs,  in  private  marginal 
annotations,  and  especially  in  all  the 
strange  assortment  of  publications  of  the 
seekers  after  new  light  in  psychology, 

[93] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

metaphysics,  science  and  socialism.  On 
a  sentence  from  Emerson's  writings  they 
issue  uniformed  and  provisioned  to 
found  a  new  sect  or  school.  It  must 
be  admitted  that  Emerson's  sentences 
separated  from  their  fellows  readily  lend 
themselves  to  every  sort  of  propaganda. 
It  is  the  fate  of  all  inspired  utterance 
founded  on  what  is  deepest  and  most 
universal  in  experience.  But  the  crit 
ique  and  corrective  are  in  other  sen 
tences  ;  for  Emerson  never  allows  a  too 
literal  application  of  his  oracular  utter 
ances.  Although  he  has  wings  with 
which  to  soar,  he  loves  also  to  plant  his 
feet  firmly  upon  the  earth.  I  dare  say 
it  would  have  alarmed  him  had  any 
body  of  men  attempted  to  organize  into 
civil  or  religious  compact  his  more  ad 
vanced  ideas.  He  wished  rather  to  see 
the  whole  of  mankind  moved  forward 

[94] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

and  upward  to  higher  ideals  through  the 
integrity  of  the  individual  and  not  drawn 
apart  into  coteries  of  one  idea.  He  did 
not  like  the  responsibilities  of  a  founder 
of  beliefs.  He  would  have  been  the 
first  to  escape  from  his  own  fold,  so 
jealous  was  he  of  his  freedom  of 
thought,  the  possibilities  of  the  morrow 
and  the  dangers  of  consistent  conserva 
tism  when  one  has  joined  or  formed  a 
party  or  creed.  Growth  ends  with  the 
birth  of  creeds.  Advance  is  then  too 
often  accounted  heresy.  In  his  lifetime, 
pilgrims  from  all  quarters  of  the  earth 
sought  him  out,  having  read  in  his 
books  something  of  which  they  claimed 
themselves  to  be  the  discoverers  or 
apostles.  For  this  they  laid  hands  upon 
him,  demanding  sympathy  and, —  a  sub 
scription.  I  believe  they  usually  got 
both,  but  no  more.  He  remained  Emer- 

[95] 


Remembrances  of 'Emerson 

son,  not  a  Come-outer,  Swedenborgian, 
or  Fourierite.  We  who  were  young 
and  without  crotchets  or  affiliations 
went  to  him  in  quite  another  way  and 
with  quite  other  purposes;  and  I  am 
happy  in  knowing  that  he  liked  us  bet 
ter  than  any  other  class  of  visitors,  even 
those  who  were  themselves  famous.1 

It  is  true  that  many  young  men  of 
my  time  had  broken  with  the  churches 
of  their  fathers  and  mothers.  They 
had  undergone  the  Sunday-schools,  fam 
ily  prayers  and  revivals,  yet  obstinately 
remained  unconverted.  They  were 
more  or  less  .consciously  seeking  some 
other  way,  very  ignorantly,  blindly  and 

1 1  think  you  say  rightly  that  he  liked  the  young 
pilgrims  better,  though  youth  includes  many  persons 
over  three  score  and  ten.  But  of  the  young  he  liked 
the  young  in  years  best  if  they  had  bloom,  the  ideal 
and  courage.  —  Note  by  Edward  Waldo  Emerson. 

[96] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

helplessly.  They  were  by  no  means 
iconoclasts  or  heretics;  yet  they  were 
called  bad  names.  It  hurt  a  little ;  in 
some  cases  it  darkened  the  road  to  suc 
cess  and  prosperity.  Quiet  and  inde 
pendent  paths  are  always  open  to  him 
who  prefers  them,  or  whom  chance  has 
forbidden  the  thronged  thoroughfare. 
Nature  which  we  had  always  loved  and 
lived  with  now  became  doubly  dear  by 
Emerson's  celebration  of  its  meanings 
and  symbols.  We  were  more  than  ever 
convinced  that  the  higher  life  could  best 
be  cultivated  in  the  country,  in  retire 
ment,  and  in  humble  occupations  where 
it  was  not  absolutely  necessary  to  cheat 
and  be  cheated.  Thus  were  scattered 
over  the  rural  parts  of  New  England, 
and  no  doubt  in  other  portions  of  the 
land,  a  few  men  and  many  women  who 
were  and  continue  to  be  examples  of 

[97] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

plain  living  and  high  thinking,  the  im 
pulse  toward  which  came  originally 
through  the  teaching  of  Emerson.  Such 
models  of  domestic  simplicity  united 
with  noble  interests  and  purposes  I  have 
met  in  the  homes  of  some  friends,  where 
to  abide  a  guest  was  to  be  in  a  temple 
consecrated  to  the  Muses  and  the 
Graces.  In  this  retirement  some  at 
tempted  to  cultivate  literature,  and  I 
venture  the  assertion  that  more  of  it  has 
sprung  from  the  impulse  of  that  early 
awakening  than  from  any  other  source. 

Here  are  some  sentences  from  one  of 
Emerson's  earlier  addresses,  "Man  the 
Reformer,"  delivered  in  1841,  which 
illustrate  his  views  and  had  great  influ 
ence  in  turning  the  thoughts  of  his  hear 
ers  and  readers  toward  a  reform  in  ways 
of  living. 

"Our  life  as  we  lead  it  is  common 

[98] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

and  mean;  some  of  those  offices  and 
functions  for  which  we  were  mainly 
created  are  grown  so  rare  in  society  that 
the  memory  of  them  is  only  kept  alive 
in  old  books  and  in  dim  traditions. 

"  I  will  not  dissemble  my  hope  that 
each  person  whom  I  address  has  felt 
his  own  call  to  cast  aside  all  evil  cus 
toms,  timidities  and  limitations  and  to 
be  in  his  place  a  free  and  helpful 
man. 

"  The  manual  labor  of  society  ought 
to  be  shared  among  all  the  members. 
A  man  should  have  a  farm  or  a 
mechanical  craft  for  his  culture.  We 
must  have  a  basis  for  our  higher  ac 
complishments,  our  delicate  entertain 
ments  of  poetry  and  philosophy  in  the 
work  of  our  hands.  Manual  labor  is 
the  study  of  the  external  world.  The 
advantage  of  riches  remains  with  him 

[99] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

who  procured  them,  not  with  the  heir. 
When  I  go  into  my  garden  with  a 
spade  and  dig  a  bed  I  feel  such  an 
exhilaration  and  health  that  I  discover 
that  I  have  been  defrauding  myself  all  this 
time  in  letting  others  do  for  me  what  I 
should  have  done  with  my  own  hands. 

"I  do  not  wish  to  overstate  this  doc 
trine  of  labor  or  insist  that  every  man 
should  be  a  farmer  any  more  than  that 
every  man  should  be  a  lexicographer. 
But  the  doctrine  of  the  farm  is  merely 
this,  that  every  man  ought  to  stand  in 
primary  relations  with  the  work  of  the 
world,  ought  to  do  it  himself  and  not 
to  suffer  the  accidents  of  his  having  a 
purse  in  his  pocket  or  his  having  been 
bred  to  some  dishonorable  and  injuri 
ous  craft  to  sever  him  from  those 
duties;  and  for  this  reason  that  labor  is 
God's  education. 

[TOO] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

"  I  think  if  a  man  find  in  himself 
any  strong  bias  to  poetry,  to  art,  to  the 
contemplative  life,  drawing  him  to 
these  things  with  a  devotion  incom 
patible  with  good  husbandry  that  man 
ought  to  reckon  early  with  himself 
and  respecting  the  compensations  of 
the  universe  ought  to  ransom  himself 
from  the  duties  of  economy  by  a  cer 
tain  rigor  and  privation  in  his  habits. 
For  privileges  so  rare  and  grand  let 
him  not  stint  to  pay  a  great  tax.  Let 
him  be  a  cenobite,  a  pauper,  and  if 
need  be  celibate  also.  Let  him  learn 
to  eat  his  meals  standing,  and  to  relish 
the  taste  for  fair  water  and  black  bread. 
He  must  live  in  a  chamber  and  post 
pone  his  self-indulgence,  forewarned 
and  forearmed  against  that  frequent 
misfortune  of  men  of  genius,  the  taste 
for  luxury. 

['01] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

"  Why  needs  any  man  be  rich  ? 
Why  must  he  have  horses,  fine  gar 
ments,  handsome  apartments,  access  to 
public  houses  and  places  of  amuse 
ment  ?  Only  for  want  of  thought. 
Give  his  mind  a  new  image  and  he 
flees  into  a  solitary  garden  or  garret 
to  enjoy  it,  and  is  richer  with  that 
dream  than  the  fee  of  a  county  could 
make  him. 

"  Let  us  learn  the  meaning  of 
economy.  Economy  is  a  high,  humane 
office,  a  sacrament,  when  its  aim  is 
grand ;  when  it  is  the  prudence  of 
simple  tastes,  when  it  is  practiced  for 
freedom,  or  love,  or  devotion.  Much 
of  the  economy  which  we  see  in  houses 
is  of  base  origin  and  is  best  kept  out  of 
sight.  Parched  corn  eaten  to-day  that 
I  may  have  roast  fowl  to-  my  dinner  on 
Sunday  is  a  baseness ;  but  parched  corn 
[102] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

and  a  house  with  one  apartment  that  I 
may  be  free  of  all  perturbations,  that  I 
may  be  serene  and  docile  to  what  the 
mind  shall  speak  and  girt  and  road-ready 
for  the  lowest  mission  of  knowledge, 
is  frugality  for  gods  and  heroes." 

Emerson  may  have  had  a  too  master 
ful  influence  at  first  over  these  awak 
ened  souls,  but  through  it  they  finally 
found  their  own  genius  and  entering 
various  paths  with  pen,  with  ledger, 
with  sermon,  in  journalism,  in  teach 
ing,  in  politics  and  law  have  every 
where  uplifted  our  civilization  and 
given  a  higher  tone  to  public  opinion. 
There  are  idealists  in  the  stock  ex 
change  and  on  lonely  New  England 
farms  whose  pedigree  can  be  traced  to 
Concord. 

Wisdom,  it  is  said,  is  good  with  an 
inheritance,  and  some  men  begin  with 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

the  latter  for  their  first  enterprise. 
How  to  interpose  in  everyday  affairs 
the  due  admixture  of  philosophy,  some 
ambrosial  salad  with  common  bread 
and  meat,  is  the  problem  of  life.  He 
who  keeps  in  mind  the  precepts,  and  I 
may  add,  the  practice  of  Emerson,  has 
some  helps  to  that  end.  It  is  well  to 
have  been  shown  that  while  involved 
in  the  petty  as  in  the  most  imperial 
employments  of  this  life  the  soul  can 
dwell  apart.  He  is  fortunate  who 
can  do  this;  who  does  not  need  to 
separate  himself  from  the  world  to  be 
no  part  of  its  trivialities  and  its  boasted 
realities. 

Here  I  must  record  a  sorrowful  fact, 
—  the  dilemma  in  which  I  and  many 
of  my  companions  who  wished  to  fol 
low  the  Emersonian  ideas  found  our 
selves  when  it  was  necessary  to  choose 
[104] 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

some  definite  career  in  life.  It  was  not 
the  Choice  of  Hercules,  the  absolute 
good  or  evil,  but  one  of  subtle  and  over- 
refined  discriminations.  We  had  learned 
only  half  of  our  lesson  and  bewildered 
by  the  current  rejection  of  Emerson  as 
a  guide  and  obstructed  on  every  hand 
by  the  stiff  conservatism  of  the  times  in 
religion,  literature  and  politics  there 
seemed  to  be  no  place  for  us.  The 
half-digested  lesson  therefore  impelled 
us  to  the  thought  of  separation  and  re 
tirement.  It  would  be  easy,  we  dreamed, 
to  follow  ideals  in  solitude  or  in  a  spe 
cially  selected,  congenial  society.  We 
could  at  least  work  with  our  hands, 
dividing  the  day  between  labor  and 
thought,  and  show  the  world  the  use- 
lessness  of  church  and  state  and  riches. 
From  these  Arcadias  and  Utopias  we 
were  speedily  driven,  and  compelled  by 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

the  usual  necessities  of  life,  we  drifted 
back  into  the  common  employments 
and  conditions  of  our  fellows  and  learned 
at  length  the  other  half  of  our  wise 
lesson,  namely,  to  live  out  the  ideal 
amid  our  own  affairs,  however  humble, 
and  with  the  brethren  of  the  common 
lot. 

I  for  one  have  been  well  satisfied  to 
live  without  the  American  ambitions, 
in  small,  rustic  communities,  laboring 
sometimes  with  my  hands  and  again 
with  my  pen  in  friendly  obscurity. 
The  voices  and  intimations  of  nature  are 
not  absent  from  such  retreats,  where 
also  the  records  of  the  great  spirits  of 
literature  can  be  gathered  upon  a  few 
shelves;  nor  are  the  affairs  of  the  little 
community  altogether  without  interest, 
which  once  a  year  are  concentrated  in 
that  imoressive  public  function,  the 
[106] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

Town  Meeting.1  For  this  latter  I  have 
the  greatest  respect  as  the  oldest  and 
chiefest  palladium  of  civilization  founded 
on  freedom.  There  and  there  alone  the 
citizen  is  a  recognizable  unit ;  elewhere, 
mostly  a  cipher.  One  of  the  best  les 
sons  I  have  learned  from  Emerson,  and 
others  before  me  have  made  the  same 
confession,  is  to  be  faithful  over  a  few 
things,  beginning  first  with  self.  If 
more  things  do  not  follow  it  is  no  affair 
of  ours.  There  is  nothing  so  alluring 
to  most  men  as  power  and  responsibility, 
but  the  ways  to  them  are  devious  and 
largely  in  the  hands  of  fortune.  The 

1  My  Father  delighted  in  town  meetings ;  sat 
there  humbly  as  an  admiring  learner,  while  the 
farmer,  the  shoemaker  and  the  squire  made  all  that 
he  delighted  to  read  of  Demosthenes,  of  Cato,  of 
Burke,  as  true  in  Concord  as  in  ancient  cities. 
Especially  was  he  pleased  if  he  could  carry  in  an 
Englishman  to  see.  —  Note  by  E.  W.  Emerson. 

[107] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

slave  is  contented  when  unaware  of  his 
chains;  the  free  man  in  knowing  his 
limits.  A  small  stage  for  small  men; 
but  life  can  be  well  lived  even  here,  and 
for  the  greater  — 

"  I  think  not  much  of  that  or  the  less  : 
T  hear  the  roll  of  the  ages." 

It  was  the  same  with  the  state  and 
its  tendencies  as  with  the  church.  The 
bonds  of  tradition  and  an  ancient  super 
stition  held  fast  the  various  religious 
orders  of  men.  Slavery  had  paralyzed 
the  moral  sense  of  the  state.  The  mut- 
terings  of  strife  were  in  the  air,  confined 
as  yet  to  a  few  angry  remonstrants 
against  the  apparent  apathy  of  the 
North.  It  was  in  the  North  dangerous 
to  life  and  property  to  speak  publicly 
against  slavery ;  in  the  South  there  were 
the  tar-pot,  the  rifle  and  the  jail  on  suspi 
cion  of  Abolitionism.  But  on  this  sub- 
[108] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

ject  there  is  abundant  history.  I  wish 
to  confine  myself  to  the  attitude  of  the 
handful  of  young  men  who,  through 
the  influence  of  Emerson,  had  become 
emancipated  from  the  conservatism,  the 
Whiggery  and  the  dogmas  of  the  times, 
who  with  the  impetuosity  of  youth 
rushed  into  the  other  extreme  of  fanati 
cism,  declaring  war  on  their  own  ac 
count  some  years  before  Fort  Sumter 
was  fired  upon.  At  the  Phillips  Acad 
emy,  Andover,  in  1853—54,  among  two 
hundred  students  there  were  only  three 
of  known  anti-slavery  sentiments.  There 
Prof.  Moses  Stuart  had  shown  the  Bible 
authority  for  slavery;  and  Daniel  Web 
ster  was  the  god  of  student  idolatry. 
We  three  however  stood  fast  by  our 
colors  in  many  a  passionate  argument 
in  dormitory  and  campus;  and  when 
Anthony  Burns  was  about  to  be  returned 
[109] 


Remembrances  of  *  Emerson 

to  his  chains  from  a  Boston  Court  of 
Justice,  we  were  on  the  point  of  march 
ing  our  army  of  three  to  the  rescue; 
but  alas,  we  had  not  a  single  gun.  We 
consoled  ourselves  with  composing 
speeches  to  be  delivered  for  the  inspira 
tion  of  the  rescuing  mob.  One  of  these 
I  well  remember,  stuffed  with  apostro 
phes  to  the  goddess  of  liberty  and  recon 
dite  classical  allusions.  What  a  spectacle 
to  gods  and  men  that  might  have  been 
if  delivered  as  intended  by  the  beardless 
stripling  from  the  topmost  step  of  the 
Boston  Court  House,  adding  that  ridic 
ulous  element  which  sometimes  makes 
tragedy  more  tragic.  We  were  intensely 
serious  and  in  earnest.  However  we 
remained  in  our  chambers  and  I  dare 
say  found  a  new  vigor  and  point  in  Ci 
cero's  Orations  from  the  tremendous 
convulsion  in  our  own  bosoms.  We 
[no] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

studied  now  with  a  sort  of  fury  and 
went  about  with  the  lean  and  hungry 
look  of  Cassius.  In  a  spirit  of  ven 
geance  we  felt  called  upon  to  put  our 
pro-slavery  classmates  at  the  foot  of  the 
class  if  we  could  punish  them  in  no 
other  way ;  and  we  succeeded,  a  schol 
astic  and  pedantic  justice,  which  helped 
to  cool  our  blood,  and  it  delights  me 
to  remember  and  record.  We  made 
it  most  uncomfortable  for  the  little 
downy-bearded  friends  of  the  slavehold 
ers  at  recitation,  where  we  took  especial 
pains  to  emphasize  every  liberal  Cicero 
nian  sentiment  and  at  the  commons- 
table  with  gibe  and  satire  we  gave  them 
no  peace.  We  had  all  the  fine  senti 
ments  concerning  freedom  at  our  tongues' 
end,  as  well  as  all  the  pathetic  stories 
of  the  cruelties  of  African  slavery.  It 
was  the  custom  of  one  or  other  of  the 
[in] 


Remembrances  of  ILmerson 

commons  club  officers  to  preside  at  the 
table  and  either  to  say  grace  himself  or 
to  call  upon  some  other  member.  It 
happened  on  a  day  that  one  of  the  pro 
scribed  three  who  was  not  religiously 
inclined,  presided  and  asked  the  blessing. 
He  began,  "  O  Lord,  thou  knowest  the 
contented  slave  is  a  degraded  man/' — 
what  farther  he  intended  to  say  I  know 
not;  there  was  a  clatter  of  knives  and 
forks  and  his  grace  came  to  a  sudden 
ending.  Silence  and  gloom  overspread 
us  during  the  remainder  of  breakfast  and 
everybody  felt  ugly  and  ready  for  a  fight. 
Thereafter  only  church  members,  that 
is,  those  of  the  pro-slavery  set,  were  al 
lowed  to  say  grace. 

In   a   few  years  more  our  numbers 

had  suddenly  and  immensely  increased. 

To  hold  anti-slavery  sentiments  was  no 

longer  to  be  a  marked  man.      Sumner 

[i  i  a] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

had  been  struck  down  in  the  United 
States  Senate  by  Preston  Brooks,  of 
South  Carolina.  We  felt  it  was  not 
a  blow  aimed  at  one  man  by  another, 
but  by  one-half  the  nation  against  the 
other  half.  The  South  hurled  the 
bludgeon,  the  North  received  the  blow. 
As  early  as  1 844  Emerson  had  very 
clearly  announced  his  views  on  slavery ; 
but  I  doubt  if  from  the  first  he  had 
held  any  other.  It  was  not  in  his 
nature  to  be  other  than  a  lover  of  hu 
man  freedom.1 

In  1856,  after  the  attack  upon 
Sumner,  he  delivered  a  short  but  im 
pressive  speech  at  an  indignation  meet 
ing  of  his  fellow  citizens  in  Concord. 

1  One  of  the  finest  pieces  of  character  in  my 
Father's  life  seems  to  me  his  entering  the  lists 
with  the  black  giant  knight  Webster,  then  the 
darling  of  the  country,  in  the  Free  Soil  campaign 
of  1856. —  Note  by  E.  W.  Emerson. 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

Then  followed  the  great  reception  and 
procession  in  Boston  in  honor  of 
Sumner  upon  his  recovery  and  return 
to  his  home.  The  procession  was  led 
by  the  venerable  Josiah  Quincy.  My 
companions  and  I  were  not  far  behind 
on  foot  carrying  good,  heavy  walking 
sticks,  not  unlike  clubs,  which  we  bran 
dished  about  in  defiance  of  an  enemy  as 
yet  unchallenged.  Our  blood  was  up, 
our  tongues  wildly  loosened,  although 
there  were  none  present  to  engage  in 
discussion  with  us.  They  were  converted 
or  dumb.  Even  Andover,  Cambridge 
and  other  seats  of  learning  that  had  held 
the  Biblical  and  Constitutional  briefs  for 
slavery  drew  back  in  fright  and  repent 
ance. 

In  1859,  John  Brown  was  hung. 
No  man  or  party  could  have  been  said 
at  that  time  to  lead  the  opinion  of  the 

[«4J 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

North.  It  was  all  but  unanimous. 
The  trial  of  Captain  Brown  aroused 
more  antagonism  against  the  South 
than  years  of  anti-slavery  agitation  had 
been  able  to  produce.  His  speech  on 
that  occasion  became  a  rallying  cry, 
bringing  into  prominence  once  more 
the  Scriptural  teachings  concerning  self- 
sacrifice  and  the  brotherhood  of  man  ; 
and  again  we  beheld  the  penalty  of 
such  words  expiated  upon  a  Virginia 
scaffold.  During  this  stormy  time 
Emerson  appeared  on  the  side  of 
humanity.  He  made  two  addresses 
on  Captain  Brown  which  are  among 
his  collected  writings  and  they  are  the 
most  impassioned  words  he  ever  deliv 
ered. 

We  younger  men  followed  his  lead 
with  still  greater  ardor.  We  were  for 
action.  We  wanted  to  rescue  John 


Remembrances  of  Rmerson 

Brown  and  offered  our  services  for  that 
purpose  to  certain  persons  whom  we 
privately  heard  were  ready  to  lead  us. 
The  force  was  to  consist  of  some  three 
thousand  picked  men  who  were  to  ren 
dezvous  separately  at  Harper's  Ferry. 
More  prudent  counsels  prevailed  and 
we  were  left  to  nurse  our  wrath  as  best 
we  could.  The  time  soon  came  when 
there  was  ample  scope  for  that  wrath 
in  a  practicable  direction.  The  flower 
of  New  England  youth  went  to  the 
war  and  gave  their  lives  for  their  faith. 
For  four  years  they  continued  to  fall 
on  battlefield  and  in  hospital.  Those 
years  lost  their  spring  and  their  shadow 
still  darkens  and  delays  it.  But  war 
was  better  than  peace  at  the  price 
asked ;  as  Emerson  said  at  its  outbreak, 
"  Sometimes  gunpowder  smells  good." 
If  it  left  the  plough  in  the  furrow,  it 
[116] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

also  broke  up  yardsticks  and  consumed 
selfishness  in  a  flash  ;  overthrew  mouldy 
conventions  and  made  heroes  out  of 
pale  students  and  dapper  clerks. 

For  all  this  Emerson's  lectures,  con 
versations  and  published  writings  had 
helped  to  blazon  the  way.  Young  men 
under  his  influence  were  prepared  for 
any  enterprise  that  would  bring  in  a 
better  day.  They  took  sides  with  the 
ideal  against  the  prevalent  opinions, 
customs  and  manners  and  often  at  the 
sacrifice  of  worldly  prosperity.  They 
sometimes  carried  individualism  to  ex 
cess  and  became  recluse  or  eccentric. 
Yet  to  sum  up,  there  has  been  no  one 
man  in  our  land  who  has  exerted  so 
powerful  an  influence  for  spiritual,  moral 
and  intellectual  advancement  as  Emer 
son. 

As    a    whole    his    ideas    fortunately 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

cannot  be  formulated  into  a  philosophy 
or  creed  unless  indeed  his  constant 
tropes  be  taken  literally,  and  it  is  too 
late  for  that ;  we  have  just  escaped  the 
long  reign  of  literalism  and  shall  not 
soon  put  our  necks  under  the  yoke  of 
Asiatic  symbols.  Yet  Emerson's  views, 
ideal  and  impossible  as  they  may  seem 
to  be,  will  serve  a  man  very  well  when 
any  of  the  real  issues  of  life  are  to  be 
met.  There  was  never  any  question 
where  those  ideals  would  take  Emer 
son  himself,  nor  on  which  side  he 
would  be  found  when  the  opposing 
forces  of  freedom  and  slavery,  of  prog 
ress  and  conservatism  should  meet  in 
peace  or  war.  Some  internal  magnet, 
not  to  be  deflected  by  public  opinion, 
majorities,  or  popularity,  pointed  to  the 
star  of  his  hopes  and  convictions.  I  am 
impressed  with  the  fact  that  he  never 
[118] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

made  any  mistakes  throughout  his  ca 
reer.  He  faced  one  way  and  continued 
to  face  that  way.  He  never  had  to  re 
cant,  to  make  a  new  start,  to  modify  or 
apologize.  Instead,  he  went  forward 
with  an  even,  undeviating  step,  applying 
his  leading  thought,  namely,  the  im 
portance  of  the  individual,  his  identity 
with  nature  and  nature  with  itself,  and 
above  all  insisting  on  the  moral  point 
of  view  through  every  subject  that  he 
discussed  from  his  first  word  to  his  last. 
He  presents  the  unique  example  of  a 
man  who  continuously  surrendered  him 
self  to  the  higher  intuitions  which  he 
himself  termed  the  Over  Soul,  meaning 
much  the  same  thing  as  when  the  herds 
man  Amos  wrote  "  God  declareth  unto 
man  what  is  his  thought."  Unlike 
other  moralists,  religious  teachers  and 
prophets,  who  sometimes  lapsed  into 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

complaints  or  denunciation  of  human 
frailties,  Emerson  steadfastly  fixes  his 
eyes  upon  the  highest  and  recognizes 
only  the  divine  in  man.  The  result 
upon  the  reader  is  a  wonderful  exalta 
tion  and  desire  to  realize  that  ideal.  I 
would  emphasize  again,  that  this,  with 
the  ever-present  conviction  and  conclu 
sion  of  all  his  writings,  that  there  is  a 
moral  to  be  drawn  from  the  natural 
world  as  well  as  from  man's,  makes  him 
one  of  the  great  guides  of  life  in  a 
society  now  breaking  away  from  ancient 
landmarks  and  filled  with  a  thousand 
discordant  demands  for  reorganization. 
With  Emerson  on  my  shelves,  I  feel 
like  saying  as  the  doorkeeper  of  a  rich 
house  is  instructed  to  say  to  mendicants 
and  peddlers,  "  No,  we  have  nothing  to 
give, —  we  want  nothing."  But  Emer 
son  brings  with  him  the  best  of  goods 
[120] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

and  company  and  is  not  so  exclusive 
that  he  cannot  bear  the  presence  of  all 
the  immortal  books  ever  written.  I 
chanced  to  read  Emerson  before  I  knew 
the  others  and  have  never  ceased  to  be 
thankful  that  I  had  such  a  guide  and 
such  a  light  toward  the  great  masters 
of  thought.  In  the  various  corners  of 
my  seaside  and  mountain  castles,  castles 
of  one  story,  Emerson  and  his  mates 
stand:  a  rather  ragged  regiment,  with 
some  missing  who  should  be  there;  but 
I  take  care  that  only  his  equals  shall 
be  invited  to  share  the  shelves  perma 
nently. 

There  is  one  other  explanation  of 
Emerson's  influence  over  young  men, 
somewhat  closer  and  more  personal, 
which  I  must  attempt  to  examine,  al 
though  I  fear  I  may  not  be  able  to  make 
it  as  clear  as  it  lies  in  my  own  mind, 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

inasmuch  as  it  pertains  to  an  inward 
crisis  of  life  when  it  is  passing  from 
childhood  to  consciousness,  and  there 
fore  difficult  to  be  communicated  or  un 
derstood  unless  already  experienced. 

A  boy's  nature  has  a  healthy  imagina 
tion  and  spontaneous  expression.  It 
does  not  calculate  consequences ;  it  looks 
not  backward  nor  much  into  its  future, 
and  is  seldom  introspective.  If  the  boy 
declares  he  will  be  a  sailor,  a  grocer  or 
a  soldier,  it  is  not  because  he  has  dis 
covered  in  himself  a  special  gift  for  those 
occupations,  but  because  of  the  physical 
attractions  with  which  he  accredits  them. 
So  at  first  all  of  his  attractions  and  re 
pulsions  are  of  an  outward,  objective 
kind.  Nothing  as  yet  has  appealed  to 
his  most  inward  nature  with  its  faint, 
undefined  longings.  Slowly,  or  it  may 
be  suddenly,  he  awakens  to  the  fact  of 
[122] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

his  own  personality,  his  ego,  his  inde 
pendent  being;  and  he  begins  to  note 
and  measure  its  difference  or  sympathy 
with  other  beings.  Ai  this  critical  pe 
riod  it  is  of  momentous  consequence  in 
what  direction  he  is  drawn;  what  in 
fluences,  material  or  spiritual,  are  thrown 
into  the  delicate  balance  of  his  quicken 
ing  tendencies.  The  new-found  being, 
the  exuberance  of  youth,  usually  draw 
men  into  self-enjoyment,  into  compan 
ionship  and  society  and  ambitions,  and 
the  integrity  of  the  youthful,  just  awak 
ened  soul  is  dissipated  and  lost.  One  has 
had  little  chance  or  encouragement  to 
keep  hold  of  himself.  On  the  contrary, 
he  is  discouraged ;  uncomfortable  epithets 
await  him,  egotist,  peculiar,  eccentric; 
and  at  one  time  or  another  it  bears  the 
name  of  some  discredited  person  or  in 
stitution.  All  voices  counsel  the  young 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

man  to  be  like  other  people ;  to  conform, 
to  keep  step  or  to  be  left  behind. 

At  an  opportune  moment  Emerson 
met  the  dawning  consciousness  and  in 
telligence,  and  I  doubt  not  continues 
to  do  so,  of  many  young  men  when 
it  must  be  confessed  they  were  sur 
charged  with  the  exaggerations  of 
self-importance ;  when  their  newly  dis 
covered  powers  were  seething  in  inde 
terminate  and  nebulous  disorder.  He 
impressed  the  importance  of  a  man  to 
himself  and  the  necessity  and  dignity 
of  self-reliance.  Yet  he  directed  this 
thought  into  such  lofty  meanings  and 
implications  as  to  effect  the  cure  of  ego 
tism  and  pretension  and  open  the  per 
ceptions  to  the  required  preparation  for 
self-trust  and  the  incoming  of  higher 
life.  Moreover,  he  held  out  the  hope 
and  the  promise  that  only  in  being  true 
[1*4] 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

to  ourselves  could  we  arrive  at  a  real 
understanding  of  other  men  and  discover 
our  spiritual  affinity  with  them  as  well  as 
with  nature,  which  is  best  worth  know 
ing  of  anything  in  the  world. 

This  was  a  comfortable  and  elevated 
doctrine,  which  so  released  us  from  the 
obligation  of  trying  to  know  and  do  the 
thing  not  in  harmony  with  our  own  na 
ture  and  its  aspiration,  so  freed  us  from 
conformity  and  tradition  that  we  eagerly 
accepted  it.  If  some  were  overzealous 
and  carried  the  idea  beyond  its  true  scope 
they  soon  found  the  limitations,  and 
within  them  have  quietly  worked  out 
their  own  destiny.  Wherever  Emer 
son's  teachings  have  found  welcome 
among  men  they  have  been  followed 
by  saner  living  and  nobler  impulses. 
They  have  not  been  attended  by  organ 
ized  institutions  founded  upon  his  name 


Remembrances  of  ILmerson 

and  writings,  but  as  he  wished  have 
entered  into  the  life  and  character  of 
individuals,  until  the  seed  is  now  sown 
broadcast  and  bears  fruit  after  its  kind 
in  many  sequestered  as  well  as  public 
places.  We  young  men  of  Emerson's 
time,  realizing  our  own  being  and  its 
potentialities,  and  yet  uninstructed,  were 
turning  in  all  directions  for  help.  Being 
in  a  certain  sense  delivered  from  the 
trammels  of  outworn  opinion,  by  our 
very  aspirations  which  were  prophetic 
of  a  new  day,  we  found  not  this  help  in 
the  writers  of  the  past.  Although  the 
rules  of  conduct  were  at  hand,  where 
was  the  master  who  could  lead  us  on, 
could  fit  himself  to  our  special  and  per 
sonal  need;  who  could  give  us  faith  in 
a  new  thought  and  courage  to  follow  it 
and  captivate  us  by  the  form  of  its  ex 
pression?  We  found  him  in  Emerson. 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

Such  was  the  deep  impression  he  made, 
so  profoundly  did  it  move  his  readers 
that  each  knew  immediately  this  message 
was  not  for  himself  alone  and  at  once 
was  generated  that  sympathy  which  pro 
phesies  of  kindred  spirits  and  in  due 
time  is  united  with  them. 

Thus  it  was  we  came  into  companion 
ship  and  found  our  own.  We  formed 
no  school,  but  we  did  have  a  master.  I 
see  Emerson  at  our  head,  leading  his 
extraordinary  collection  of  boys ;  some 
over  bold  and  opinionated,  others  facile 
and  docile;  some  with  long  locks,  poetic 
and  melancholy;  others  eager  to  apply 
literally  and  at  once  to  all  existing  evils 
the  Emersonian  remedies.  The  master 
has  hard  work  to  keep  us  in  order,  but 
he  allows  a  considerable  latitude  and 
idiosyncrasy  and  is  overflowing  with  con 
fidence  in  our  future.  At  last  he  leads 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

us  smiling  to  the  seat  of  the  Muses  and 
introduces  us  as  worthy  of  the  palm,  the 
oak,  the  olive  or  more  humble  parsley. 

By  permission  of  the  publishers  of  my 
Prose  Idyls  I  add  here  in  conclusion  of 
these  recollections  a  condensed,  sym 
bolic  rendering  of  them  which  was 
written  in  a  moment  of  enthusiasm 
when  symbols  and  metaphors  seemed 
best  suited  to  shelter  a  personal  expe 
rience. 

THE     MIND    CURER 

"  It  would  be  well/'  said  the  sage  to  me 
one  day,  "  to  go  to  college ;  it  would  be 
better  to  go  around  the  world;  but  best 
of  all  to  go  look  everything  thou  meet- 
est  with  in  the  face  and  ask  of  it  some 
question  that  is  in  thine  own  heart.  If 
thou  art  patient,  but  withal  importunate, 
then  after  many  years  thou  wilt  find  the 


Emerson  s  Influence  on  Young  Men 

answers  written  everywhere,  in  a  pre- 
Cadmean  alphabet,"  such  were  his  very 
words,  "  over  all  waste  places  and  in  the 
dust  under  thy  feet." 

Thus  spoke  the  sage,  and  many  other 
things  of  similar  import,  speaking  like 
the  Pythoness  across  the  centuries,  re 
gardless  of  age,  time  and  circumstances. 

As  I  had  gone  clandestinely,  had 
hired  a  chaise  and  traveled  twenty  miles 
at  the  expense  of  all  my  substance  to 
consult  the  oracle,  I  held  it  to  be  mine 
and  I  treasured  it  up  for  many  years 
without  comprehending  it.  Yet  gen 
erally  I  felt  it  like  Socrates'  daemon,  re 
straining  me  from  many  things.  I  know 
not  how,  but  the  lofty  words  and  their 
very  vagueness  elevated  the  soul  and 
made  it  expectant  of  wonderful  revela 
tions.  If  I  sought  honor,  ease,  riches, 
love,  something  said,  Seek  them  not ! 
[129] 


Remembrances  of  Emersm 

and  at  length  they  palled  before  a  life, 
not  mine,  but  whose  existence  I  could 
divine.  As  the  astronomer  knows  of  an 
unseen  star  by  the  perturbations  of  some 
other  visible,  so  I  conjectured  of  a 
higher  life  by  the  agitations,  the  attrac 
tions  and  repulsions  of  this. 

Thus  did  the  sage  and  the  master  of 
many  centuries  cure  the  uncertain  ado 
lescent  mind  ere  yet  it  had  reached  to 
follies  or  prevented  the  entrance  of  wis 
dom. 


EMERSON  AS  ESSAYIST 


EMERSON  AS  ESSAYIST 

PERSON'S  Essays  are  the 
almost  unexampled  instance  of 
matter  prepared  for  oral  de 
livery  that  has  a  place  in  permanent  and 
vital  literature.  I  know  of  no  other 
compositions  save  his  which  have  stood 
the  test  of  reading  in  private  equally 
well  with  the  effect  of  public  delivery. 
How  cold  and  tame  seem  orations  and 
addresses  when  read  which  were  heard 
with  thunders  of  applause.  This  is 
partly  due  to  the  temporary  or  occa 
sional  topic,  or  to  a  charm  of  voice  and 
magnetism  of  the  speaker  which  throw 
so  illusive  a  glamour  over  the  common 
place  that  it  shall  seem  extraordinary 
and  the  trivial  important.  Each  gen- 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

eration  reads  with  disappointment  the 
greatest  efforts  of  oratory  of  a  previous 
one. 

Here  lies  the  point  which  distin 
guished  Emerson  from  other  speakers. 
His  topics  were  seldom  transient ;  they 
were  the  eternal  ones  of  life ;  and  he 
had  an  original  manner  of  treatment 
and  the  literary  skill  which  have  made 
the  Essays  a  lasting  addition  to  the 
instruction  and  elevation  of  mankind.. 
Dealing  as  he  did  with  the  eternal 
principles  of  nature,  his  mind  became 
charged  with  a  cosmical  force  which 
he  manifests  in  his  original  style  and 
in  the  profound  treatment  of  his  sub 
jects.  He  penetrates  to  the  essence  of 
things  and  lays  bare  the  secret  opera 
tions  of  mind  and  matter.  It  is  obvi 
ous  such  themes  are  neither  gilded  by 
the  momentary  enthusiasm  accorded  to 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

the  orator,  nor  can  they  be  stripped 
of  their  imperishable  qualities  when 
read  in  print.  In  their  subsequent  re 
vision  for  publication  something  per 
haps  was  added,  but  more,  I  think,  was 
struck  out.  The  concise  and  close 
statement  was  made  more  concise  and 
close ;  the  inadequate  word  or  phrase 
gave  place  to  the  apposite.  Conjunc 
tions,  adjuncts  and  adverbs  disappeared. 
He  retained,  however,  as  his  most  con 
venient  bridge  from  one  paragraph  to 
another  the  adverb  "  while ' '  or  "  whilst." 
The  metaphor  was  made  simpler  and 
stronger  ;  the  condensation  was  extreme. 
I  remember  a  sentence,  if  so  it  may 
be  called,  of  only  two  words,  and  it  is 
one  of  the  most  effective  in  the  essay 
in  which  it  occurs.  He  was  fond  of 
the  elision  of  the  letter  /  in  that  con 
venient  Protean  pronoun,  it ;  so  that 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

"'tis"  became  a  well-known  earmark 
in  the  Emersonian  academe.  I  do  not 
wonder  at  his  cutting  the  word,  one 
could  almost  wish  the  elision  had  been 
complete. 

Emerson  trimmed  and  pared  his  sen 
tences  to  the  last  limit ;  and  he  left  to 
the  reader  the  pleasant  task  of  supply 
ing  joints  and  hinges  and  of  rinding  or 
making  mortises  for  his  nicely  articu 
lated  tenons.  He  uses  a  figure  of  speech 
where  most  writers  would  insert  a  logi 
cal  demonstration,  or  argument  or  en 
treaty.  As  one  reads  it  is  equally 
convincing  and  a  thousand  times  more 
agreeable ;  but  it  is  hard  to  keep  the 
connections,  especially  where  the  page 
sparkles  with  epigrammatic  sentences. 
He  is  never  satisfied  unless  he  attaches 
the  concrete  to  the  most  profound  ab 
stractions  ;  until  like  the  dreams  of  the 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

gods  his  visions  and  ideals  are  made  real 
by  some  natural  image,  some  actual 
example. 

After  the  lecture  had  been  newly 
dressed,  after  the  excisions,  the  com 
pressions,  the  polish,  the  file,  something 
remained  less  impersonal,  less  conven 
tionally  literary,  special  and  academic 
than  in  other  English  essays.  I  think 
that  I  can  still  faintly  detect  the  air  of 
the  lecture  room  ;  the  upturned  faces, 
expecting  the  sentence  which  should 
cut  clean,  sound  to  the  depths,  soar  to 
the  heights,  and  never  disappointed  that 
expectation.  There  yet  lingers  over  the 
Essays  the  direct  address,  the  hortatory, 
the  call  to  me,  to  you,  which  makes 
them  so  exciting  and  so  revolutionary. 
He  uses  the  first  person  a  great  deal; 
and  one  reciprocates  the  high  com 
pliment  by  believing  himself  alone  ad- 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

dressed.       It   is  like  a   personal  inter 
view.1 

A  veritable  presence  does  vitalize  Em 
erson's  Essays;  it  is  a  soul  informed 
with  thought,  with  beauty,  with  experi 
ence,  observation  and  conviction,  speak 
ing  to  the  soul.  It  has  drawn  to  itself 
what  belonged  to  it,  and  cast  out  what 
did  not.  It  dares  to  be  true  to  itself  in 
all  subjects  and  always.  It  is  as  impor 
tant  to  note  the  unvarying  attitude  of 
Emerson's  mind  as  the  particular  expres 
sion  of  it.  We  do  not  know  what  he 

1  It  is  not  necessary  to  assent  to  everything  he 
says, —  but  all,  even  such  as  I,  can  understand 
enough  to  be  moved  to  adoration  and  worship  of 
the  true,  the  beautiful  and  good.  —  Rev.  Samuel 
Rip  ley  to  Mary  Moody  Emerson  in  1838. 

One  person  observed  she  durst  not  breathe 
scarcely  during  the  whole  lecture.  Yet  some  were 
displeased  and  thought  the  influence  he  exerted  not 
good.  —  Same  to  same,  l8j8. 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

may  have  to  deliver,  what  surprises  may 
be  in  store  under  any  of  his  rubrics,  but 
we  do  know  that  Emerson  will  be  there. 
He  is  so  self-consistent  that  never  a  doubt 
interferes  with  our  certainty  as  to  the 
position  he  will  take  on  any  public  or 
moral  or  literary  question.1  We  know  that 
he  could  not  take  any  other  than  he  does. 
There  never  was  any  writer  so  forbidden 
by  his  own  genius  to  wander  outside  of 
its  own  domain.  He  was  almost  impris 
oned  by  it.  In  a  hundred  subjects  and  di 
gressions  there  is  a  thread  which  binds  all 
and  cannot  be  lost.  He  is  everywhere  the 
same.  Should  a  single  page  of  Emerson 
be  exhumed  from  the  future  ruins  of  mod 
ern  libraries  it  would  be  enough  to  iden 
tify  him  and  testify  to  his  genius. 

1  In  praising  a  letter  of  Sterling's  Emerson  said, 
"  These  were  opinions  (for  which  he  did  not  care 
so  much),  but  the  tone  was  the  man." 


Remembrances  of 'Emerson 

Is  it  remarkable  then  that  Emerson 
who  was  so  one  in  all  his  work  should 
have  been  so  untiring  a  searcher  after 
identity  in  the  history  of  mankind,  both 
outward  and  spiritual,  and  in  the  opera 
tions  of  nature?  He  pursued  this  iden 
tity  not  perhaps  with  the  philosophical 
intent  of  finding  a  first  cause,  or  princi 
ple,  which  ends  often  in  dogma  and 
system ;  but  he  was  pleased,  like  a  poet, 
with  the  oneness  of  things;  the  corre 
spondences  between  nature  and  man, 
between  matter  and  spirit.  He  saw 
symbols,  and  saw  them  as  a  never-end 
ing  and  interchangeable  order.  He  was 
not  content  with  seeing  likeness  in  one 
place,  one  time,  or  object,  but  always 
and  everywhere.  He  gave  the  imma 
nent  spirit  pervading  nature  and  man 
many  names,  the  loftiest  of  which  was 
the  Over  Soul.  It  was  his  key  with 
[140] 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

which  he  opened  secret  and  obscure  pas 
sages  to  man  and  nature,  and  revealed 
them  as  clearly  as  the  known  and  the 
familiar.  It  at  once  commanded  a 
larger  thought  and  advanced  his  hearers 
and  readers  into  a  new  life.  The  first 
effect  of  it  was  practical;  that  is,  it 
enticed  the  hearer  or  reader  into  a  de 
sire  for  embodiment.  I  assert  this  al 
though  aware  that  it  was  an  ideal  life 
which  was  endeavored  to  be  realized;  a 
life  as  yet  without  institutions  to  assist 
and  protect  it.  The  singular  elevation 
of  Emerson's  vision  enabled  him  to  be 
hold  harmony,  order  and  love;  those  in 
a  lower  atmosphere  who  could  not  bear 
that  high  light  might  yet,  by  his  help, 
catch  glimpses  of  the  good  and  fair;  and 
here  and  there  some  solitary  youth  at 
tempted  to  conform  his  living  and  think 
ing  to  the  Concord  oracles.  For  such 

[HI] 


Remembrances  of  Turner  son 

youth  Emerson  had  a  great  tenderness, 
a  great  sympathy  and  hope,  believing 
as  he  did  that  ideas  must  realize  them 
selves  as  surely  as  the  acorn  becomes  an 
oak. 

Emerson  was  an  optimist  because  he 
was  first  an  idealist ;  that  is,  he  believed 
in  the  triumph  of  thought  over  the  evil 
and  brute  forces  in  the  world.  He 
made  "no  account  of  objections  which 
respect  the  actual  state  of  the  world  at 
the  present  moment."  "Put  trust  in 
ideas  and  not  in  circumstances."  "It 
is  the  ground  we  do  not  tread  upon  that 
supports  us/'  And  I  must  repeat  here 
the  best  saying  of  Emerson  as  illustrative 
of  his  habitual  irony  toward  all  things 
of  matter-of-fact  and  practical  impor 
tance:  "Excuse  me,"  he  said  to  some 
friends  when  called  away  by  the  appear 
ance  of  a  load  of  wood  in  his  yard,  "we 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

have  to  attend  to  these  matters  just  as  if 
they  were  real." 

Some  foreign  as  well  as  some  Ameri 
can  critics  of  Emerson  are  ignorant  of 
his  influence  upon  the  actual  life  of  the 
men  and  women  who  were  reading  him 
when  he  was  at  his  prime  and  they  were 
in  the  eager  and  impressionable  stage  of 
youth.  Although  it  is  Matthew  Arnold 
who  has  so  wisely  said  that  poetry  is  a 
criticism  of  life ;  who  also  notes  its  deep 
influence  on  readers  of  Wordsworth, 
forming  the  intellectual  tendencies  of 
many  other  poets  and  writers  and  hav 
ing  a  subtle,  far-reaching  effect  over 
literature,  society  and  even  government; 
yet  he  seems  not  to  be  aware  of  the 
similar  facts  in  regard  to  Emerson's 
poetry  and  prose.  They  are,  it  is  true, 
not  so  conspicuous,  but  they  are  just  as 
real.  Perhaps  more  of  the  Emersonian 

[143] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

seed  fell  into  unprepared  ground,  into  a 
younger  civilization,  a  more  restless  gen 
eration  than  in  the  case  of  Wordsworth 
and  Carlyle,  and  displayed  itself  in  more 
crude  and  eccentric  forms.  But  his 
teaching  must  not  be  measured  by  the 
foibles  of  some  of  its  followers;  every 
noble  tree  has  its  parasitic  growths.  A 
tree  that  is  large  and  vigorous  enough 
can  sustain  a  good  many.  Time  will 
rectify  this.  Wordsworth's  imitators, 
his  weaker  disciples,  who  thought  sim 
ple  themes  and  characters  as  worthy  of 
poetry  as  great  ones  and  yet  were  too  un 
skilled  to  treat  them  greatly,  have  fallen 
into  obscurity,  and  only  those  capable  of 
holding  aloft  and  passing  on  the  light 
they  have  received,  remain  and  are  re 
membered.  It  has  been  thus  with  every 
great  teacher,  every  original  force;  and 
so  it  will  be  with  Emerson. 
['44] 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

When  I  consider  Emerson  from  these 
points  of  view  I  am  impatient  of  merely 
literary  criticism  of  him.  It  does  not 
compass  his  aims,  his  power  and  his 
effect.  There  is  something  in  these  you 
will  not  find  when  you  only  read  Emer 
son's  books  as  literature.  There  is  al 
ready  history  in  them ;  that  is,  what 
they  contain  of  suggestion  and  aspira 
tion  has  been  more  or  less  successfully 
put  into  the  life  of  this  age.  Whether 
this  will  continue  to  be  their  fortune  is 
an  unimportant  and  also  unanswerable 
question.  In  the  history  of  most  great 
men  there  has  been  at  first  a  personal 
following,  a  band  of  disciples  whose  cir 
cle  has  extended  itself  in  a  natural  man 
ner.  There  happened  to  Emerson  what 
usually  happens  to  all  eminent  moral  or 
literary  leaders;  something  calling  itself 
the  public  began  to  criticise  and  sneer 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

at  those  who  were  the  earliest  and  warm 
est  of  Emerson's  admirers,  reproaching 
them  with  the  intention  of  appropriat 
ing  him  exclusively  to  themselves,  and 
with  being  blinded  by  their  closeness  to 
him.  Though  late  in  discovering  it, 
and  in  fact  by  no  other  means  than  the 
observation  of  his  influence  and  fame 
among  a  small  band,  this  public  found 
out  that  there  was  an  Emerson,  a  poet, 
essayist  or  philosopher,  they  were  not 
sure  which.  After  this  discovery  the 
next  step  was  in  accordance  with  the 
most  ancient  precedents, —  mockery  of 
the  follower  and  praise  of  the  master. 
The  public  took  its  view  and  mainly  its 
expression  from  the  follower;  but  cen 
sured  him  as  a  mere  satellite,  from  whom 
they  pretended  they  would  rescue  the 
real  Emerson  and  show  that  he  belonged 
to  a  wider  world  than  the  Concord  or 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

other  coterie.  This  was  the  position  of 
those  who  slowly  and  grudgingly  mag 
nified  Emerson  in  order  to  belittle  such 
as  had  anticipated  their  discoveries. 
"We  claim  Emerson  for  a  larger  ban 
quet  than  yours, —  too  large  for  you ;  go 
you  to  the  foot  of  the  table. "  This  is 
always  said  by  those  who  come  late  to 
the  feast.  "But,"  said  Themistocles, 
"they  who  start  too  late  in  the  games 
are  not  crowned."  They  accepted 
Emerson  when  he  began  to  be  famous, 
not  before;  and  they  always  found  it 
more  easy  to  satirize  the  Emersonian? 
than  to  understand  Emerson.  This 
amused  for  awhile,  and  then  it  passed 
away.  There  are  always  brilliant  wits 
who  know  how  to  present  truth  and  its 
opposite  in  such  close  proximity  that  it 
is  impossible  to  separate  them,  and  only 
safe  to  cut  the  whole  away  and  build  on 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

another  and  simpler  foundation.  These 
wits  wish  to  be  thought  to  follow  no 
body;  to  stand  as  supreme  critics  and 
representative  of  the  cosmopolitan  mind. 
On  the  contrary  they  remind  one  of 
rows  of  pins  on  a  paper,  all  alike,  very 
small  heads  and  very  sharp  points. 

There  is  another  class  of  critics  who 
endeavor  without  prejudice  to  estimate 
Emerson  as  a  writer  and  fix  his  place. 
Yet  in  forming  their  estimate  they  do 
not  take  into  account  his  influence,  both 
personal  and  literary,  over  his  contempo 
raries,  nor  conceive  how  great  was  the 
spiritual  awakening  caused  by  his  writ 
ings.  I  believe  no  one  could  know  it 
who  had  not  directly  fallen  under  its 
immediate  power.  This  which  makes 
Emerson  so  dear  to  some,  also  renders  it 
difficult  for  those  who  are  out  of  sym 
pathy  with  his  teachings  to  find  any 
[148] 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

Emerson  at  all,  any  greatness,  any  power. 
Although  not  a  professedly  religious 
teacher,  we  can  only  compare  his  influ 
ence  to  that  of  one.  He  seldom  enters 
upon  any  piece  of  writing  as  a  purely 
intellectual  exercise.  To  follow  him 
then  from  literary  standpoints  is  to  miss 
his  message.  Yet  he  was  literary  in  the 
special  sense  of  that  term ;  he  never  de 
preciated  the  place  of  the  intellect,  and 
often  upheld  it.  He  appears,  however, 
to  have  been  very  impatient  of  the 
merely  academic  manner  and  to  have 
subordinated  both  literary  art  and  in 
tellectual  processes  to  a  spiritual  vision, 
which  was  a  natural  gift  in  him,  his 
genius.  He  makes  way  for  this  always; 
his  pen  falters  and  the  essay  hesitates 
when  this  does  not  command  him.  He 
did  not  climb  any  height  by  the  steps 
of  fact  and  argument,  but  he  alighted 

[H9] 


Remembrances  of  Earners  on 

there  on  the  height,  and  descends  by 
familiar  paths,  by  homely  illustration, 
proverb,  practical  applications  to  life, 
inverting  as  it  were  the  usual  order  of 
thinking.  Sometimes  he  stays  on  the 
summits,  passing  from  one  to  another,  as 
the  higher  clouds  touch  in  their  flight 
only  the  loftiest  mountain  peaks.  All 
of  Emerson's  intrinsic  greatness  and 
power  seem  to  me  to  come  from  the 
commanding  place  from  which  he  be 
gins  to  discuss  every  subject  in  the  Es 
says.  In  other  writings,  as  biographies 
annals  and  topics  of  the  day,  he  meas 
ures  men,  nations,  events  and  reforms 
by  lifting  them  to  the  plane  from  whence 
in  his  more  abstract  compositions  he  is 
accustomed  to  take  his  flight. 

Emerson's  method,  his  intellectual  or 
philosophical  or  spiritual  first  principles 
are  to  be  found  at  large  in  his  writings, 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

in  the  least  as  in  the  lengthiest.  To 
every  object  in  nature,  to  life,  the  mind 
applies  itself  to  learn  what  it  means. 
This  meaning,  idea  or  cause  is  more 
beautiful  and  of  larger  significance  than 
the  particular  example  of  it.  The  mean 
ing  of  a  flower  as  drawn  out  in  a  line  or 
poem  is  more  impressive  than  the  flower  ; 
the  source  of  electricity,  if  we  could  find 
it,  would  be  more  wonderful  than  its 
applications.  The  object  too  often  con 
fines  our  attention  to  itself;  but  its 
idea  has  no  limitations.  The  Essays  of 
Emerson  are  an  attempt  to  look  into 
certain  subjects  singly  ;  to  give  to  each 
the  whole  mind  and  to  receive  in  re 
turn  the  whole  truth  of  each.  The 
lines,  the  relations  between  them  you 
do  not  get  from  Emerson  in  any  capi 
tal  generalization  ;  it  is  found  involved 
in  the  prevailing  texture  of  every  essay. 


Remembrances  of  ILmerson 

Now  this  involved  generalization,  never 
formal,  but  a  sort  of  reappearing,  flash 
ing  light,  irregular  and  always  surpris 
ing,  is  the  very  essence  of  Emerson's 
genius.  It  is  a  clear  light  to  some  ;  to 
others  it  is  not  clear  at  all.  It  is  pecu 
liar,  it  is  individual.  Drink  deep  or 
taste  not  the  Emersonian  Castalia.  All 
his  work  is  colored  by  his  natural  genius 
and  character.  It  was  novel  to  us  who 
had  received  no  education  for  his  ideas 
or  style.  The  Essays  have  all  the  quali 
ties  of  new  and  original  thinking,  and 
therefore  were  not  immediately  and  ori 
ginally  acceptable.  We  have  to  learn 
how  to  read,  how  to  accept  and  use 
such  writing.  That  we  have  learned  so 
rapidly  is  due  to  the  continuity  of  Emer 
son's  work  ;  to  his  frequent  appearance 
before  the  public  in  lyceums  and  re 
form  organizations ;  to  the  general 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

steadiness  of  his  character,  so  that  in 
time  it  became  well  known  for  what 
he  stood ;  due  also  to  his  engaging 
manners,  which  sent  every  one  to  his 
books  as  soon  as  he  had  chanced  to 
meet  the  man,  and  where  the  one  inter 
preted  the  other  ;  these  and  some  ridi 
cule  and  denunciation  exciting  a  certain 
curiosity  to  know  the  object  of  them, 
gave  an  earlier  and  wider  fame  to  Emer 
son  than  has  been  usual  with  writers 
who  have  dealt  with  high  themes. 
However,  I  think  there  is  something  in 
the  nature  of  illusion  in  the  common 
tradition  that  great  writers  are  not  rec 
ognized  in  their  own  day.  We  flatter 
ourselves  and  measure  the  beginning  by 
the  end.  It  even  makes  us  suspicious 
that  no  man  can  enjoy  a  great  fame  in 
his  own  lifetime,  or  immediately,  and 
continue  to  have  it  thereafter. 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

Emerson  found  his  place  very  early 
with  a  few  readers  in  the  United  States, 
and  with  here  and  there  one  in  Europe. 
It  is  now  said  by  an  English  critic  that 
Emerson  has  been  accepted  by  our  gen 
eration  as  one  of  its  wise  masters  and 
that  he  does  not  stand  in  need  of  any 
interpretation,  that  he  is  his  own  ex 
positor.  Then  as  usual  there  follow 
fifty  pages  of  exposition. 

It  is  more  than  fifty  years  since  the 
Essays  were  published ;  the  first  vol 
ume  in  1841,  the  second  in  1 844.  They 
contain  what  is  most  characteristic  of 
Emerson  and  what,  in  one  form  or  an 
other,  appears  throughout  all  his  sub 
sequent  publications.  I  think  they  are 
more  read  than  his  other  works,  al 
though  in  the  beginning  they  had  no 
sale  in  comparison  with  his  later  books. 
But  when  people  began  to  read  the 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

Conduct  of  Life,  English  Traits,  etc., 
they  turned  back  to  the  Essays.  Un 
der  whatever  title  his  separate  prose 
works  appear,  essays  fit  them  best.  Yet 
most  of  them  were  prepared  for  public 
delivery.  Some  profess  to  observe  this 
in  their  style ;  but  these  are  among  the 
survivors  of  his  former  audiences,  who 
are  unable  to  forget  the  tones  of  voice, 
the  manner  and  the  total  effect  of  the 
delivery.  For  it  certainly  cannot  be 
discovered  by  any  resemblances  to  writ 
ing  that  we  do  know  was  prepared  for 
public  delivery,  which  has  for  its  pre 
vailing  qualities  nothing  in  the  least  like 
the  qualities  of  Emerson's  page. 

The  old  lecture  platform  witnessed 
every  sort  of  performance  with  an  im 
partial  eye.  It  listened  to  eloquence, 
to  nonsense  and  to  thought;  it  was  not 
greatly  moved  by  any ;  it  was,  perhaps, 

[155] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

made  a  little  more  eager  for  the  next 
lecture,  which  might  demolish  the  ideas 
of  the  last.  The  audiences  had  their 
favorites,  usually  the  more  eloquent 
speakers.  But  it  is  painful  to  recall  and 
still  more  so  to  read  what  went  under 
the  name  of  eloquence  in  Emerson's 
day ;  that  which  was  selected  for  school- 
readers,  spouted  by  collegians  and  ad 
mired  by  everybody.1  I  remember  now 
with  amusement  the  blank  and  con 
founded  looks  of  three  masters  and  two 
hundred  boys  when  on  declamation  day 

1  It  is  remarkable  how  the  love,  he  in  common 
with  the  imaginative  and  thoughtful  students  of  his 
college  days  had  for  eighteenth  century  eloquence, 
always  remained,  and  with  what  delight  in  remi 
niscence,  often  woefully  disappointed  when  he 
found  the  passage,  he  told  us  of  the  college  elo 
quence  of  his  day,  imitating  the  very  tones  of  John 
Everitt  and  some  of  the  southerners  of  his  time. 
—  Note  by  E.  W.  Emerson. 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

I  delivered  the  whole  of  Milton's  Lyci- 
das  as  my  part  in  the  exercises.  The 
boys  winked  and  screwed  their  faces,  the 
masters  shifted  uneasily  in  their  chairs, 
and  I  was  too  chagrined  to  lift  up  my 
head  again  for  a  week.  I  knew  I  had 
committed  a  horrible  sin  against  all  the 
gods  of  oratory,  forensic  and  Fourth  of 

July. 

Being  so  admired,  eloquent  writing 
was  the  fashion;  it  crept  into  poetry. 
The  last  generation  of  American  poets 
was  more  often  eloquent  than  poetic. 
The  verses  are  sermon,  oration  or  narra 
tive  with  capital  letters  and  rhymes.  It 
was  a  barbarian  taste,  now  relegated  to 
politics.  Its  last  echo  was  at  the  con 
secration  of  the  battlefield  of  Gettys 
burg,  where  a  specimen  of  that  kind  of 
oratory  was  brought  into  striking  com 
parison  with  a  few  words  of  thought 


Remembrances  of  *  Emerson 

inflamed  by  the  heart  of  Lincoln.  Every 
one  who  either  heard  or  read  them  both 
felt  that  the  days  of  the  conventional 
oration  had  been  numbered.  It  was  the 
beginning  of  an  intellectual  era  in  our 
history. 

As  we  usually  understand  eloquence, 
it  requires  an  occasion,  when  bodies  of 
men  are  already  excited  and  feel  elo 
quently  and  create  half  the  power  of  the 
orator  himself.  You  cannot  manufac 
ture  this  opportunity;  you  cannot  arise 
before  an  audience  and  excite  the  pre 
possessions  necessary  to  responsive  feel 
ing.  But  the  moral  nature  in  men  and 
in  a  less  degree  the  intellectual,  are  al 
ways  a  prepared  audience.  To  this 
Emerson  addressed  himself;  and  he  at 
length  secured  its  attention.  He  offered 
to  it  matter  which,  after  having  been 
illuminated  by  his  voice  and  literary 


-Rmerwn  as  Essayist 

style,  was  of  that  force  and  beauty  to 
instruct  and  delight  as  much  when  read 
as  when  heard.  The  essay  was  as  good 
as  when  it  was  a  lecture;  and  to  follow 
it  one  step  farther,  it  still  retained  its 
characteristics  when  it  took  the  form  of 
poetry;  for  often  Emerson's  poetry  re 
peats  his  prose.  Nothing  in  Emerson  is 
more  plain  than  the  unity  of  his  work, 
and  its  similarity  under  whatever  form 
or  title.  What  he  saw  and  so  constantly 
reiterated  as  the  secret  of  creation,  the 
relation  of  nature  to  man,  and  of  man 
to  spirit  he  discovered  in  his  own  being. 
Identity  of  being,  under  diversity  of 
form,  was  his  constant  text.  Emerson 
is  the  supreme  analogist  of  modern  or 
ancient  times.  It  is  always  the  same, 
whether  sketching  the  history  of  Con 
cord  or  the  intuitions  of  the  soul.  If 
there  be  any  narrowness  in  his  mind  or 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

fault  in  his  expression  it  is  the  repetition 
of  this  majestic  idea.  Yet  how  inevi 
table,  how  necessary,  it  is  that  men  who 
are  prophets  of  the  soul,  who  have  a 
vital  message  to  deliver,  should  proclaim 
at  all  times  their  one  idea,  one  doctrine 
in  manifold  forms  and  in  every  shape  that 
can  appeal  to  the  imagination  or  the 
interests  of  mankind. 

There  was  between  the  essay  and  lec 
ture  little  to  distinguish  them  save  those 
things  which  belonged  to  the  physical 
presence  of  Emerson.  A  strong  per 
sonality  pervades  the  Essays.  It  pro 
duces  even  yet  something  of  the  effect 
of  the  living  accents.  The  effect  of 
both  was  similar ;  it  was  not  exactly 
enthusiasm  which  they  elicited,  but  an 
inward  excitation,  almost  a  tumult  in 
young  and  serious  minds.  They  wished 
to  realize  these  fine  ideas ;  they  looked 
[i  60] 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

into  nature  with  a  new  eye ;  they  re 
tired  more  from  society,  left  off  going 
to  church,  having  experienced  religion  ; 
and  their  tastes  in  reading  became  won 
derfully  changed.  They  sought  after 
books  that  contained  thought.  At  that 
time  most  young  men  who  wished  to  be 
writers  were  forming  themselves  upon 
the  "  icily  regular,  splendidly  null " 
periods  of  the  Edinburgh  Reviewers. 
The  style  of  Emerson  was  captivating  ; 
or  was  it  style  ?  I  ask  because  some 
denied  to  him  style  and  said  that  to  call 
it  so  was  to  forget  all  precepts  and  pre 
cedents.  I  shall  not  enter  into  this,  a 
question  for  the  critics,  since  I  have 
already  taken  the  ground  that  the  Es 
says  have  a  higher  quality  than  the 
merely  literary.  Something  there  was 
in  the  sentences,  often  in  the  words 
themselves,  which  captivated  the  ear ; 
[161] 


.  .     Remembrances  of  Emerson 

but  examined  more  nearly,  it  was  the 
poetic  or  spiritual  sense  they  conveyed. 
Emerson  proceeds  by  a  series  of  men 
tal  saltations.  He  has  the  appearance 
of  neglecting  the  connecting  links  of 
which  most  writers  are  studious  and 
careful.  The  construction  is  asyndetic  ; 
the  sentences  approach  but  they  do  not 
touch.  Commonplace  and  padding  are 
omitted.  One  needs  to  take  long  breath 
ings  in  reading  the  Essays,  and  make  a 
fresh  start  at  every  new  chapter.  These 
thoughts  are  precious  pearls  of  translu 
cent,  yet  self-contained  light.  Interme 
diate  ideas  are  left  out,  —  left  for  the 
reader  to  discover  ;  these  are  the  work 
of  the  will,  of  the  pen  guided  by  exam 
ples  and  the  desire  not  only  to  supply  to 
men  their  ideas,  but  to  do  all  the  neces 
sary  thinking  about  them,  draw  all  the 
important  deductions  and  leave  no  pas- 


Rmerson  as  Ess&yist 

sage  unfortified,  in  short,  nothing  for  the 
reader  to  do.  But  Emerson's  view  of  men 
was  that  they  were  wiser  than  they  knew ; 
that  it  was  not  necessary  to  feed  them  for 
ever  on  porridge  and  keep  them  in  primer 
and  pupilage.  To  reason,  to  explain,  to 
persuade  was  condescension,  an  implied 
superiority.  As  you  appeal  to  them,  such 
you  will  find  them.  His  doctrine  of  in 
tuitions  led  him  to  address  men  as  if  they 
would  respond  intuitively  to  the  truth  ; 
and  he  spoke  to  them  always  from  a  lofty 
ground.1  No  books  take  so  much  for 
granted  in  men,  show  such  ingenuous 

1  This  is  the  more  remarkable  when  one  remem 
bers  that  they  were  first  read  to  audiences  in  country 
towns  and  prairie  settlements  as  well  as  to  half 
philistine  audiences  in  cities.  How  well  it  worked, 
this  taking  people  by  their  best  handles,  I  tried  to 
illustrate  in  my  memoir  of  my  father  by  the  story 
of  Ma'am  Bemis,  who  understood  no  word,  but  got 
the  lesson  from  the  tone  and  attitude  of  the  man, — 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

confiding  of  inmost  thought  and  assume 
that  they  are  open  to  all  that  is  great  and 
beautiful  as  Emerson's.  It  was  a  magnif 
icent  compliment ;  it  was  the  manner  of 
kings  and  princes  to  each  other.  Where 
had  he  learned  it  ?  In  the  royal  com 
pany  of  the  sages  and  saints  of  all  lands, 
and  in  the  heart  of  woman. 

One  woman  at  least,  Mary  Moody 
Emerson,  had  an  immense  influence  over 
him  in  the  formation  of  his  youthful 
conduct  and  ideals.  She  was  a  person 
who  had  the  strongest  convictions  and 
the  most  courageous  manner  of  express- 

and  wouldn't  miss  a  lecture.  The  amazement  and 
puzzling  of  Carlyle  and  Sterling  and  others  in  Eng 
land  as  to  what  kind  of  an  audience  such  things 
could  be  addressed  to  and  find  a  response  is  always 
very  amusing  to  me,  as  is  also  the  question  what 
they  would  have  made  out  of  a  Lowell,  or  Prairie 
du  Chien,  or  Harvard  (Mass.)  audience  if  they  had 
been  present.  —  Note  by  E.  W.  Emerson. 

[i64] 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

ing  them ;  she  neither  argued  nor  per 
suaded,  but  affirmed  and  insisted  and  laid 
her  high  commands  upon  her  young 
nephew  with  the  absoluteness  and  con 
fidence  of  an  inspired  prophetess.  Such 
she  was,  in  truth.  And  if  we  are  thank 
ful  for  the  existence  of  Emerson  we  must 
also  be  grateful  that  he  had  her  for  a  guide 
and  exemplar.  He  has  himself  acknowl 
edged  his  indebtedness  in  these  words :  "  It 
was  the  privilege  of  certain  boys  to  have 
this  immeasurably  high  standard  indi 
cated  to  their  childhood ;  a  blessing  which 
nothing  else  in  education  could  supply." 
Here  are  some  of  the  standards  to 
which  he  refers  :  "  Scorn  trifles/'  "  Lift 
your  aims."  "Do  what  you  are  afraid 
to  do."  "  Sublimity  of  character  must 
come  from  sublimity  of  motive."1 

'  See   Emerson's  sketch  of  Miss  Emerson ;  also 
the  poem  "  The  Nun's  Aspiration." 

[165] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

He  had  anticipated  the  cathode  ray 
and  looked  into  the  hearts  and  heads  of 
men. 

He  modestly  claimed  only  to  have 
"overheard  things"  in  the  woods  and 
fields.  The  same  confession  Thoreau 
makes  in  his  verse : 

"  Listening  behind  me  for  my  wit." 
And  we  all  had  the  same  experience  in 
the  days  of  the  Great  Awakening ;  we 
thought  we  overheard  things  in  nature 
and  in  ourselves. 

A  man  who  had  such  faith  in  human 
ity  must  have  acquired  it  by  finding  in 
himself  a  quick  perception  of  the  best 
in  others.  He  had  learned  it  negatively 
also  by  observing  on  what  a  low  plane 
men  address  each  other,  especially  in  re 
ligion  and  morals,  referring  everything 
to  sources  and  supports  outside  of  them 
selves.  He  taught  self-reliance  and  led 
[i  66] 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

the  way.  He  believed  in  the  guidance 
of  the  intuitions,  and  that  errors  and  in 
consistencies  which  might  be  sometimes 
the  consequence  of  this  belief  were  from 
the  very  nature  of  their  origin  self-cor 
rective.  It  was  Burns's  paradox  — 

"  the  light  that  led  astray 
Was  light  from  heaven." 

If  Emerson,  too,  never  falters  in  his 
good  hopes  for  sinners,  how  much  more 
confidence  must  he  have  in  the  honest, 
self-reliant  search  for  the  right  way. 
Moreover,  whatever  wayward,  irregular 
and  contradictory  lines  might  mark  the 
track  of  man  through  life,  he  believed 
they  were  rounded  in  by  a  circle  whose 
center  was  love,  never  forfeited,  and 
whose  circumference  was  law,  all-re 
straining. 

(T gather  from  Emerson  that  the  chief 
means  to  intuitions  is  right  living;  keep 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

the  senses  clear  and  unperverted;  see 
with  your  own  eyes,  hear  with  your 
own  ears.  Man  is  an  imitative  animal 
commonly ;  catch  him  if  you  can  when 
he  is  not,  and  you  will  come  nearer  to 
his  intrinsic  nature.  Man  uses  a  vast 
quantity  of  paint  and  wears  many  gar 
ments  in  the  effort  to  unite  himself  to 
his  kind.  We  learn  our  lessons  to 
gether;  first  in  the  family,  then  at 
school,  then  in  society.  Try  to  pierce 
through  all  this,  whose  prime  object  is 
to  do  what  has  been  done  and  to  know 
what  is  known,  and  wherein  it  is  fatal 
for  the  soul  to  rest.  Seek  to  advance 
through  this  elementary  state,  which  is 
only  preparatory  and  defensive,  like  the 
cocoon,  but  in  which  the  wings  never 
can  expand.  Advance,  and  be  a  person, 
and  add  something  to  lifej)  If  there  be 
anywhere  another  person,  he  can  help 
[168] 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

you;  even  his  record  is  a  help.  What 
the  poets  and  wise  men  have  sung  and 
pictured,  that  be.  -Do  not  let  ideals 
rest  in  the  realms  of  fancy.  Ideals  are 
the  prophetic  shadows  of  the  real,  or 
the  hallowed  memories  of  what  has 
been,  of  what  may  be  again  if  believed 
in  and  aspired  after.  The  thing  you 
think  of,  dream  of  and  never  give  up 
will  come  to  pass,  because  it  is  not  your 
self  alone  that  desires  and  believes ;  it  is 
a  great  moving  stream  that  has  caught 
you  in  its  currents  and  bears  upon  its 
bosom  the  gifts  you  seek. 

Emerson  states  in  many  forms  the 
ideal  and  spiritual  laws  of  life.  Like  a 
wise  doctor,  he  has  left  us  many  direc 
tions  on  lesser  matters :  how  to  come 
into  true  insights,  how  to  employ  them, 
how  to  preserve  them,  and  how  to  recog 
nize  them  in  others.  On  this  latter 


Remembrances  of  *  Emerson 

point  he  is  very  full  and  emphatic.  The 
benefit  of  human  intercourse  is  in  the 
desire  and  effort  to  listen  for  the  higher 
voice  in  men ;  if  possible  to  draw  it  out, 
to  challenge  it,  to  show  it  courtesy  and 
honor;  "to  converse  and  to  know,"  as 
Plato  said.  Emerson's  voice  at  first  was 
solitary  and  remote,  the  voice  of  one 
crying  in  the  wilderness.  His  first  es 
say,  the  little  volume  entitled  Nature, 
although  in  prose,  is  pure  poetry,  and  is 
as  unlike  the  literature  of  the  time  as 
the  Vedas.  At  length  having  attained 
to  speak  the  thoughts  of  his  more 
thoughtful  contemporaries,  he  received 
from  them  many  additions  and  illustra 
tions  which  wonderfully  enlarged  the 
circle  of  his  vision. 

I  have  in  previous  pages  described  his 
personal  manner  toward  a  guest  or  friend 
as  that  of  expectation.  It  was  very 


Rmerson  as  Essayist 

provocative.  Rarely  before  had  one 
been  so  encouraged  to  speak  his  inmost 
thought;  rather  the  effect  of  human  in 
tercourse  had  been  to  silence  it  and  sub 
stitute  what  other  men  were  thinking. 
My  companions  and  myself  felt  that  our 
education  thus  far  was  mere  absorption 
of  lifeless  knowledge.  The  fruit  of 
Emerson's  receptive  attitude  toward  his 
contemporaries,  and  I  may  say,  toward 
all  the  intellectual  legacies  of  the  past 
appears  in  the  Essays.  They  are  rich 
in  wisdom,  old  as  time;  enriched  and 
refreshened  with  contributions  such  as 
every  new  age  furnishes,  overlooked  by 
the  serene  and  penetrating  eye  of  genius. 
It  is  not  easy  to  draw  lines  through 
the  Essays,  or  to  classify  his  ideas.  Emer 
son's  mind  was  excursive ;  and  if  there 
be  one  definition  more  than  another  that 
fits  the  vague  title  of  essay,  it  is  perhaps 


Remembrances  of  ILmerson 

excursive.     As  Lowell  said  of  Theodore 
Parker's  sermons  — 

"  His  hearers  can't  tell  you  on  Sunday  before 
hand 

If  in  that  day's  discourse  you'll  be  Bibled 
or  Koraned," 

so  in  the  Essays  of  Emerson  you  are  not 
sure  what  ideas  you  will  meet  under  the 
titles  of  History,  Self-Reliance,  Wealth, 
Circles,  etc.  It  is  one  of  their  charms, 
the  surprises.  I  suppose  the  professors 
of  English  would  not  teach  their  pupils 
to  write  in  that  manner.  They  would 
instruct  them  to  cogitate  connections 
and  logical  order.  Emerson's  page  is 
often  oracular  and  epigrammatic.  The 
wisdom  of  the  ancients  as  it  has  come 
down  to  us  seems  fragmentary,  as  if 
something  had  dropped  out;  in  Emer 
son  it  appears  voluntarily  left  out.  But 
what  can  be  said  after  an  epigram  ? 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

Nothing  but  another  epigram.  Any 
thing  else  seems  tame  and  dull.  You 
are  lifted  up,  and  then  you  fall.  Oh, 
for  a  glimpse  of  those  links  which  man 
kind  persists  in  believing  make  a  chain. 
Emerson  wrote  from  the  imagination, 
from  remembered  gleams  and  visits  of  a 
spiritual  vision;  and  it  is  said,  largely 
from  notebooks  containing  miscellane 
ous  thoughts.  To  give  form  to  these,  to 
make  an  integral  structure  was  not  pos 
sible  without  a  constructive  faculty. 
There  is  a  place  for  everything  in  a 
drama,  an  epic  or  novel.  A  construct 
ive  mind  resolves  its  materials.  Emer 
son  got  together  vast  collections,  singly 
beautiful  and  valuable;  and  some  he 
happily  wrought  into  fair  and  perfect 
forms.  The  remainder  he  generously 
left  for  us  to  assort  as  we  could. 

It  is  well  known  how  Goethe's  col- 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

lections  overflowed,  beyond  his  creative 
power ;  how  he  built  a  roof  over  some, 
—  a  mere  shed  for  storage;  and  others 
he  thrust  into  various  previously  com 
pleted  houses,  all  for  temporary  conveni 
ence  and  lodgment.  Emerson  appears 
to  me  sometimes  like  a  rich  family  with 
magnificent  furniture,  but  with  no  house 
in  which  to  display  it.  He  was  apt  to 
move  it  about  from  one  place  to  another, 
from  one  lecture  to  another,  then  into 
the  essay;  and  some  precious  pieces  he 
left  standing  alone,  like  statues,  with  only 
the  light  of  heaven  for  their  protec 
tion,  wonderful  sentences,  quite  self-sub 
stantial,  yet  how  much  more  impressive  if 
placed  in  some  noble  temple.  I  have  often 
wished  that  Emerson  had  left  ofTpreach- 
ing  and  had  created  a  work  of  art  that 
would  have  itself  preached.  In  reading 
him  I  cannot  admire  variously  enough ; 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

there  is  not  sufficient  opportunity  for 
beholding  beauty,  form,  proportion  in 
the  organization  of  his  materials.  They 
are  too  abstract,  too  absolute.  We  long 
for  some  embracing,  concrete  form ;  for 
embodiment,  for  incarnation,  so  that 
through  his  mouth  should  have  spoken 
a  hundred  men  and  women.  Am  I 
asking  for  a  mine  when  I  already  have 
more  jewels  than  I  can  wear?  Yes,  it 
is  true;  it  is  true  that  when  we  find 
greatness  in  a  man  it  creates  an  appetite 
for  the  greater. 

There  are  certain  of  Emerson's  ear 
lier  Essays  that  when  I  read  I  feel  my 
self  an  auditor  in  a  vast  temple,  with  one 
voice  resounding,  distant  and  solemn, 
and  calling  upon  me  to  be  a  god.  Or, 
it  is  as  if  in  Hamlet  or  Prometheus  none 
but  Hamlet  and  Prometheus  should 
speak.  The  splendid  sentences  exhilar- 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

ate  and  fill  me  with  a  dazzling  sense  of 
my  own  possibilities.  I  read  one  and  a 
second,  and  at  the  third  I  am  intoxicated 
and  pack  my  trunk  at  once  for  Utopia. 
Emerson  mingles  no  water  in  his  wine. 
His  great  soul  never  condescended  to 
qualify,  to  concede,  to  write  down.  It 
is  difficult  to  maintain  the  elevation  so 
easy  to  attain  while  reading  Emerson's 
page.  The  moment  we  leave  it  there 
is  danger  of  a  tumble.  Therefore  a  wise 
and  moderate  morsel  at  one  time  is  best. 
Like  our  prayers^we  should  come  to  it 
in  the  right  mood;  then  there  will  be 
a  response  of  more  lasting  effectTj 

The  study  of  the  Essays  is  an  excel 
lent  preparation  for  reading  the  master 
pieces  of  all  literatures.  It  opens  and 
prepares  the  mind  for  greatness  of  every 
kind.  In  particular  his  admiration  of 
the  noble  actions  of  men,  whether  real 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

or  those  imagined  by  poets  and  drama 
tists,  is  inspiring  and  contagious.  He 
was  the  literary  as  well  as  spiritual  ma 
gician  of  his  time.  He  had  a  sure  scent 
for  the  excellent  in  every  department  of 
man's  activities ;  in  biographies,  in  wars, 
in  science,  in  poetry.  The  mere  enu 
meration  of  the  names  of  great  men  and 
of  heroic  deeds  is  to  us  when  young  very 
enkindling;  and  Emerson  was  fond  of 
repeating  long  lists  of  these  in  an  allusive 
and  attractive  way.  In  fact,  it  was 
rather  the  fashion  among  the  original 
Transcendentalists.  It  was  the  same  in 
regard  to  all  famous  books.  I  suppose 
there  is  no  studious  reader  whose  first 
impulse  on  hearing  of  one  is  not  to  pro 
cure  and  read  it  immediately ;  and  we 
must  credit  Emerson  with  promoting 
the  taste  for  the  best  literature  and  im 
proving  the  whole  literary  tone  of  the 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

country.  This,  however,  was  only  a 
minor  and  incidental  effect  of  his  writ 
ing;  but  it  served  to  keep  the  somewhat 
sublimated  thought  and  spiritual  air  of 
the  time  from  becoming  unhealthy  and 
narrow. 

It  seems  sometimes  as  though  Emer 
son  in  the  Essays  had  set  out  to  distill 
the  essence  of  libraries  into  a  page; 
pages  into  a  sentence;  the  sentence  into 
a  phrase,  the  phrase  to  a  word.  This 
design,  this  intellectual  habit  is  the  very 
opposite  of  the  creative  and  constructive 
mind.  Perhaps  some  sentences  from 
Joubert,  a  French  writer  of  Pensees,  will 
best  describe  one  feature  of  Emerson  as 
a  writer.  These  sentences  are  from  a 
chapter  entitled  by  Joubert, "  The  author 
painted  by  himself." 

"  It  is  my  province  to  sow,  but  not 
to  build  or  found." 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

"  I  am  like  an  Aeolian  harp  that  gives 
out  certain  fine  tones  but  executes  no 
air." 

"  It  will  be  said  that  I  speak  with 
subtlety.  This  is  sometimes  the  sole 
means  of  penetrating  that  the  intellect 
has  in  its  power  ;  and  this  may  arise  from 
the  nature  of  the  truth  to  which  it  would 
attain,  or  from  that  of  the  opinions,  or  of 
the  ignorance  through  which  it  is  reduced 
painfully  to  open  for  itself  a  way." 

"  It  is  not  my  periods  that  I  polish, 
but  my  ideas.  I  pause  until  the  drop  of 
light  of  which  I  stand  in  need  is  formed 
and  falls  from  my  pen." 

This  last  expression  seems  to  define 
not  only  Emerson's  literary  habit,  but. 
also  his  waiting  upon  the  moment  of  in 
spiration.  His  will  was  exercised  in  the 
work  of  preparing  himself  for  this  mo 
ment,  in  making  his  windows  clear  and 

[179] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

leaving  open  his  doors.  His  attitude  to 
ward  his  own  mind  and  perceptions  was 
distinctly  religious.  "  Our  thought  is  a 
pious  reception,"  he  says.  The  god  of 
thought,  the  Muse,  will  enter  if  you  are 
not  too  impatient,  if  you  will  not  stand 
in  your  own  light,  if  you  do  not  wrap 
yourself  in  creeds  and  customs.  "  Ideas 
come  when  it  pleases  them,  not  when 
it  pleases  me,"  said  Rousseau.  Emerson 
taught  this  as  literary  ethics,  and  the 
Essays  are  an  example  of  the  fruits  of 
its  practice.  He  listened  for  the  still 
small  voice,  supposed  hitherto  to  speak 
only  in  Hebrew  and  Greek  and  from 
Asia.  He  announced  that  it  could  be 
heard  in  America  and  to-day,  and  that 
it  now  spoke  English.  Its  chief  diffi 
culty  for  us  is  that  it  continues  to  be  small 
and  still,  while  we  want  the  large  and 
explosive. 


ILmerson  as  Essayist 

I  have  said  that  Emerson  constantly 
inculcates  right  living  as  the  means  to  in 
tellectual  and  spiritual  insights.  Perhaps 
one-half  of  the  Essays  concerns  the  state 
ment  of  what  forms  his  highest  ideals 
of  life  ;  and  the  other  half  of  the  conduct 
necessary  to  realize  them.  In  the  latter 
he  descends  to  many  particulars,  and 
shows  that  common  sense  and  shrewd, 
homely  wisdom  for  which  he  has  been 
much  praised.  It  made  some  of  his 
later  Essays  almost  popular.  They  were 
even  commended  in  Boston  and  New 
York,  and  by  such  reputable  citizens  as 
Messrs.  Hard  and  Long  Head.  "  Our 
daughters,  sir,  have  understood  you  for 
a  long  time  back  ;  but  we  have  never 
paid  much  attention  until  lately  ;  now 
we  begin  to  find  you  comprehensible ; 
a  good  Yankee,  too,  and  we  hear  you 
are  a  man  of  some  property  and  of  a 
[181] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

first-rate  family."  True,  we  are  never 
allowed  to  forget  that  Emerson  was  de 
scended  from  seven  New  England  min 
isters,  while  the  remnant  of  us  and  our 
ancestors  kept  shop  or  raised  corn  ;  yet 
such  was  the  force  and  circumstance  of 
New  England  blood  that  however  ethe 
real  it  became  it  was  never  quite  alien 
ated  from  the  counter  and  the  farm,  or 
however  earthy,  it  had  yet  its  Sabbath  of 
transcendental  moods.  And  what  pleases 
the  heart  of  the  bourgeois  most  is  that 
Emerson  took  care  of  his  property  and 
increased  it.  He  was  no  crazy  poet  or 
reformer,  living  in  the  woods  or  an 
attic,  or  worse,  upon  his  friends.  One  is 
allowed  to  preach  almost  any  kind  of 
destructive  or  lofty  notion  in  New  Eng 
land,  provided  he  do  it  behind  a  respect 
able  life,  a  house,  a  lineage,  a  black  coat 
and  bank  stock. 

[181] 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

But  let  us  see  what  were  Emerson's 
maxims,  to  be  gathered  from  the  Es 
says,  for  the  life  requisite  to  procure  in 
tellectual  light  and  the  power  to  com 
municate  it  to  other  men.  Respect  the 
senses,  the  avenues  of  much  knowledge  ; 
there  is  an  inevitable  contest  whether 
the  body  shall  possess  the  soul,  or  the  soul 
the  body ;  man  must  know  and  com 
mand  the  inclinations  of  each.  Live 
with  nature  as  much  as  possible  ;  it  cor 
rects  the  social  life.  Walk  in  the  woods 
and  by  the  river ;  avoid  the  highways ; 
they  have  a  definite  destination.  Con 
sider  the  pine  trees  and  their  Sibylline 
voices.  Purify  yourself  with  ideal  medi 
tation.  Follow  your  instincts.  Write 
"  whim  "  over  your  lintel,  to  humor  the 
world ;  but  do  not  believe  it  to  be  such 
yourself.  Do  not  conform,  nor  make 
laborious  effort  to  be  consistent ;  expect 


Remembrances  of  ILmerson 

to  be  misunderstood  for  awhile.  "  Break 
up  the  tiresome  old  heavens," — here  I 
quote  one  of  his  best  quotations, — which 
expresses  the  effort  of  every  master  and 
the  unspoken  heart  of  youth.  Eat,  drink 
temperately ;  use  indulgences  and  lux 
uries  moderately  ;  taste  the  cup,  do  not 
drain  it ;  smoke  half  a  cigar.  One  end 
of  it  is  stimulating  and  social,  the  other 
is  narcotic  and  silencing.  Gratify,  but 
not  like  the  beasts,  your  special  appetites 
and  inclinations, — even  pie  was  made  to 
be  eaten.  "  Let  the  divine  part  be  up 
ward,  and  the  region  of  the  beast  below/' 
You  cannot  always  drive  out  the  devil 
at  will  and  at  once ;  but  make  no  bar 
gains  with  him.  Do  not  argue,  but 
affirm  ;  the  argument  may  be  sound,  but 
the  higher  reason  is  sounder.  Sleep 
much  ;  we  are  born  again  in  solid  sleep, 
and  dreams  teach  us  something.  Use  the 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

morning  hour.  Prize  the  transient 
illuminations  of  your  own  mind,  and 
"  thoughts  of  things  which  thoughts  but 
tenderly  touch."  Do  not  be  ambitious 
of  gain  or  place.  Love  the  spot  where 
you  are,  and  the  friends  God  has  given, 
and  be  sure  to  expect  everything  good  of 
them.  Keep  the  mind  open  and  the  heart 
sincere.  These  things  do  and  you  may 
wait  hopefully  for  the  god  of  intuitions 
in  yourself,  and  hear  him  more  clearly 
in  your  fellow  beings.  For  intuition  is 
not  that  narrow  doctrine  of  hearing  only 
what  God  says  to  you,  but  the  presence 
of  God  when  he  communicates  himself 
through  any  human  being. 

The  daemon  in  man,  as  described  by 
Emerson,  is  a  more  active,  energizing 
and  versatile  spirit  than  that  of  Socrates, 
which  was  only  restraining.  Emerson's 
is  the  last  fruit  of  the  spirit  of  Christianity 


Remembrances  of 'Emerson 

and  the  general  wisdom  of  ancient  and 
modern  ages,  affirming  that  there  is  some 
thing  divine  and  immortal  in  man,  and 
that  it  has  a  voice  both  corrective  and 
suggestive,  heard  not  once  for  all,  or 
mediately,  but  always  and  by  each  person 
for  himself.  He  is  the  only  ancient 
or  modern  writer  who  continuously  and 
with  emphasis  has  taught  this  doctrine 
without  attaching  to  it  some  article  of 
external  faith,  or  building  upon  it  a 
system  of  formal  philosophy.  His  con 
tribution  to  our  faith,  the  enlargement 
and  purifying  of  it,  is  in  the  direction  of 
ethics  ;  and  to  philosophy  in  the  observa 
tion  of  the  working  of  his  own  mind. 

The  question  often  recurs  whether 
what  Emerson  observed  in  himself  and 
delivered  with  such  confidence  is  true 
for  all  men.  Time  will  sift  and  discrim 
inate  his  work;  happily  there  are  ever 
[i  86] 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

those  who  anticipate  its  verdict.  His 
manner  was  oracular,  and  he  affirmed 
more  than  he  denied.  Idealist  and  op 
timist  as  he  was,  his  affirmations  are  in 
their  nature  incomplete;  but  they  are 
dearest  to  the  heart  of  man,  the  best 
guide,  the  end  toward  which  we  strive, 
Good  and  Beauty.  Keep  the  eye  fixed 
upon  them  and  we  grow  into  their  like 
ness.  His  highest  act  of  faith  was  in 
believing  that  evil  had  no  real  existence. 
In  evolution  the  strongest  survive;  in 
morals  the  best;  in  beauty  the  most 
beautiful.  Culture  is  the  means  to  this 
end  in  the  individual.  Consoling  doc 
trine,  but  requiring  an  almost  godlike 
repose  and  elevation. 

The  essay  is  not  one  of  the  grand 
forms  of  literature;  the  content  is  all 
that  can  give  to  it  value  or  beauty.  It 
is  a  plain  roof,  covering,  it  may  be, 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

emptiness  or  magnificent  properties.  Its 
brevity  is  convenient.  It  is  a  way  of 
delivering  yourself  when  you  do  not 
know  what  else  to  do  with  what  you 
have,  or  possess  no  gift  for  invention  or 
construction.  In  the  essay  you  experi 
ment;  you  fish  in  any  water.  Mon 
taigne's  net  took  in  everything;  Bacon's, 
only  the  larger  game,  suitable  to  set  be 
fore  princes  and  men  of  affairs.  Emer 
son's  style  is  like  Bacon's  in  some  respects; 
yet  not  so  colorless  and  strained  of  per 
sonality;  while  on  the  other  hand  he  is 
not  so  whimsical  and  not  so  discursive 
as  Montaigne.  In  the  essay  you  see 
what  can  be  said,  not  what  must  be  said 
in  order  that  a  final  and  prepared  effect 
may  be  produced,  as  in  the  drama  and 
novel.  You  draw  around  the  topic  from 
many  sources  things  associated  in  your 
own  mind,  not  in  the  general  mind  and 
[188] 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

expectation.  Embellishment  and  illus 
tration  are  supplied  by  miscellaneous 
reading  ;  but  most  of  all  it  is  a  receptacle 
for  those  scattered  observations  of  life, 
nature  and  experience  which  want  a 
thread  and  would  be  lost  if  left  singly 
and  unset.  Pins  and  needles  go  to  waste 
without  a  cushion.  Prepare  a  place  for 
things  and  things  find  it.  Good  writers 
like  good  housekeepers  can  at  length 
find  a  use  for  everything,  and  do  save 
all. 

Emerson  rarely  writes  on  a  temporary 
theme.  One  looks  in  vain  to  fix  upon  some 
points  of  departure  and  arrival,  some  im 
maturity  and  maturity,  some  youth  and 
age,  some  greenness  and  ripening  in  his 
genius  and  productions.  If  these  were  in 
the  man  they  do  not  appear  in  his  work. 
He  has  no  youthful  manner;  he  began 
with  the  style  and  almost  the  grasp  which 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

he  retained  throughout.  He  began  with 
great  and  well-worn  subjects;  he  began 
with  conciseness,  with  an  imaginative 
treatment,  with  a  style  not  formed  on 
models  or  by  practice ;  but  it  seems  like 
the  transcript  of  a  mind  already  long 
accustomed  to  a  certain  inward  and  si 
lent  expression  of  itself.  This  is  why 
we  feel  it  so  near  to  our  own  experience ; 
it  seems  written  out  of  the  same.  When 
he  began  to  write  and  publish  he  left 
behind  him  the  steps  by  which  he  had 
gained  his  position.  As  far  as  his  mes 
sage  had  importance,  his  style  any  charm, 
or  his  personality  impressiveness,  they 
were  the  same  at  first  as  at  last.  It  is 
vain  to  complain  of  want  of  complete 
ness,  want  of  logic  and  connection ;  he 
is  what  he  is.  We  cannot  say  these  are 
matters  of  indifference ;  but  we  can  say 
that  a  man  must  observe  them  no  longer 
[190] 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

than  they  help  him ;  and  that  the  great 
est  minds  are  superior  to  them,  violate 
precedents  and  authorities  and  create  the 
rules  by  which  they  are  to  be  read. 
"When  what  you  read  elevates  your 
mind  and  fills  you  with  noble  aspira 
tions,  look  for  no  other  rule  by  which 
to  judge  the  book;  it  is  good  and  is  the 
work  of  a  master-hand/' 

A  few  sentences  of  unclassical  Greek 
have  moved  and  filled  the  world  for 
eighteen  centuries.  Many  of  the  favor 
ite  passages  of  literature  will  hardly  bear 
analysis,  and  none  are  more  easily  bur 
lesqued.  Emerson  was  a  careful  com 
poser  ;  but  it  would  appear  that  it  ex 
tended  not  much  further  than  sentences  ; 
to  make  them  short,  and  then  make 
another.  And  so  he  adds  thought  to 
thought  on  the  page.  Their  connec 
tion  it  has  been  wittily  said,  is  to  be 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

found  in  God, —  what  better  place  !  In 
the  lecture-room  he  paid  his  audiences 
the  compliment  of  appearing  to  think 
before  them.  Old  Sojourner  Truth  once 
said  to  an  anti-slavery  convention  before 
which  she  arose  to  speak,  "  You  have 
come  here  to  hear  what  I  am  going  to 
say  ;  and  I  have  come  here  for  the  same 
purpose."  This  was  something  the  same 
feeling  one  had  when  Emerson  arose, 
hesitated,  seemed  to  be  totally  unpre 
pared,  to  be  fumbling  for  the  right  thing 
to  say.  Was  this  nature  or  art  ?  It  cer 
tainly  was  very  exciting  to  a  sympathetic 
audience  and  doubled  the  effect  of  his 
master  strokes.  These  always  announced 
themselves  beforehand.  It  was  like  the 
flash  of  a  cannon ;  it  was  seen  before  it 
was  heard. 

In   the    Essays,    a    certain    fine    and 
noble  spirit  colors  all  that  is  there  writ- 
[192] 


Rmerson  as  Essayist 

ten.  I  have  often  felt  it  to  be  like  the 
tone  of  his  voice  in  the  lecture-room, 
which  commended  everything  it  deliv 
ered.  Whatever  passages  or  verse  of 
other  writers  he  introduced  seemed  more 
beautiful  than  in  their  own  place.  As 
was  said  of  the  Rev.  J.  S.  Buckminster, 
a  former  famous  Boston  clergyman, 
when  it  was  his  turn  to  read  the  con 
tributions  of  a  certain  literary  club  of 
that  city, —  "when  Buckminster  reads 
all  the  compositions  are  good." 

Emerson  was  a  scholar  in  the  general 
sense  of  that  title,  although  he  made  no 
additions  to  any  special  department.  But 
he  upheld  the  scholar's  vocation,  and 
celebrated  it  much  in  prose  and  verse. 
His  appreciation  of  the  studies  of  other 
men  in  all  fields  of  knowledge  was  gen 
erous  and  quick.  In  the  form  in  which 
he  chose  to  express  himself,  the  essay,  it 
[193] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

was  easy  and  fitting  to  embody  by  illus 
tration  and  reference  the  results  of  the 
labors  of  others,  and  to  take  up  the  inter 
esting  fragments  of  special  studies.  He 
detected  these,  the  universal  element  in 
particular  discoveries,  the  gems  of  wis 
dom  and  wit,  by  an  infallible  instinct. 
His  mind  held  an  antidote  to  specialism, 
and  yet  was  its  best  interpreter.  His  pro 
phetic  imagination  was  coincident  with 
some  of  the  experimental  revelations  of 
modern  science.  The  higher  regions 
of  science  depend  upon  imagination  as 
much  as  poetry  and  art  depend  upon  it. 
Every  law  must  be  felt  before  it  is  arrived 
at  by  the  understanding  and  evidence ; 
that  is  its  necessity.  But  undoubtedly 
you  must  be  looking  intently  in  its 
direction. 

Morals  would  be  as  appropriate  a  title 
for  Emerson's  Essays  as  for  Plutarch's; 
[J94] 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

the  actual  contents  covered  by  it  being 
similar,  the  search  for  the  beautiful  and 
the  good.  The  title  is  only  a  little  more 
loose  and  vague  than  the  matter.  The 
essay  shows  a  man's  reading  it  is  said  ; 
but  in  what  the  essayist  appropriates 
there  is  revealed  the  same  characteris 
tic  as  in  that  which  is  original.  What 
he  quotes  is  the  same  as  what  he  in 
vents.  "  Let  them  perish  who  have  said 
the  same  things  before/'  The  points  of 
light  are  refocused  and  sent  forward 
again. 

There  is  room  in  essay  writing  to  say 
what  comes  into  the  head ;  but  then 
there  must  be  a  head.  Emerson  read 
more  than  he  studied,  and  thought  more 
than  he  wrote,  so  that  there  is  great  com 
pression  and  conciseness  in  the  Essays. 
They  are  convenient  to  quote.  I  fre 
quently  see  in  the  newspapers  his  phrases 

[195] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

and  even  whole  sentences  uncredited. 
Thus  always  language  and  literature  are 
fed  involuntarily  from  higher  springs. 

As  on  the  platform  Emerson  seemed 
often  to  be  searching  for  the  right  word 
or  idea,  almost  admitting  the  hearer  to 
his  mental  processes,  so  on  the  page  of 
the  Essay  there  is  revealed  the  active 
principle  of  thought.  He  appears  to 
leave  out  so  much  that  he  flatters  us  with 
the  feeling  that  he  is  merely  making 
memoranda  for  us  to  complete.  He 
touched,  but  did  not  stay,  on  a  thou 
sand  subjects ;  but  he  left  them  illu 
minated  ;  there  are  diamond-like  gleams 
on  the  pages,  concentrations  of  wit  and 
wisdom,  something  for  all  moods  and 
experiences. 

I  think  the  obscurities,  or  what  some 
complain  of  as  a  want  of  cohesion  and 
logical  sequence  in  Emerson's  Essays 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

may  be  partly  explained  as  an  impatience 
of  the  commonplace,  of  the  smooth, 
facile  style  which  turns  itself  round  and 
round  a  subject,  lingering  over  an  idea 
until  it  is  so  comminuted  that  its  force 
is  lost.  It  covers  the  page,  it  does  not  fill 
it.  There  is  no  forward  movement ;  it 
begins  but  does  not  arrive.  There  are 
long  pauses  between  Emerson's  sen 
tences.  Their  brilliance,  their  power 
and  suggestion  are  often  in  these  inter 
vals.  Ordinary  punctuation  is  inade 
quate  for  their  indication.  Stop,  reader, 
and  think  ;  reflect  as  he  is  doing  ;  let  not 
the  stimulated  imagination  be  embar 
rassed  by  the  want  of  logic  ;  let  it  leap 
this  barrier  and  know  that  the  relations 
of  things  can  often  be  more  truly  seen 
in  the  mind's  illumination  than  in  that 
of  rhetorical  order.  Emerson  does  not 
weary  you  with  all  that  can  be  said  in 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

the  spaces  between  his  texts ;  but  after 
long  thinking  he  writes  another  text, — 
another  bead  on  the  string  which  when 
full  will  be  hidden.  Should  it  break  or 
seem  weak,  no  matter  ;  the  beads  are 
the  value,  not  the  string.  The  verses 
of  the  Bible  are  as  good  out  of  it  as  in  it. 
The  brightest  gems  of  all  literatures  are 
some  oft-quoted  sentences,  lines,  frag 
ments  of  an  enormous  mass  of  material 
put  together  in  structures  that  have  noth 
ing  else  save  these  to  preserve  them. 

In  his  way  Emerson  was  a  writer  very 
careful  about  form  and  style.  I  have 
heard  that  when  he  turned  a  lecture  into 
an  essay,  or  prepared  any  piece  of  writ 
ing  for  publication,  he  called  it  giving 
it  a  Greek  dress.  It  is  Greek,  but  sel 
dom  of  Athens  ;  it  is  Spartan,  Laconian. 
As  Sparta  only  permitted  poetry  in  war 
songs,  so  Emerson's  is  strictly  confined 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

to  the  moral.  He  knew  that  it  was  not 
enough  to  have  good  thoughts  ;  that  the 
gods  must  not  be  without  suitable  tem 
ples.  He  was  conscious,  like  Plato,  that 
writing  is  the  grave  of  thought ;  that 
in  the  attempt  at  expression  it  becomes 
sometimes  altogether  illusive,  flat  and 
nothing  ;  while  before  the  pen  is  taken 
in  hand  it  allures  us  with  the  most  beau 
tiful  hopes.1  Let  us  then  put  thought 
to  the  test ;  and  what  by  ever  intend 
ing,  repeated  effort  will  not  take  perfect 
form,  let  us  reject.  Emerson  observed 
these  principles  of  literary  art,  not  in 

1  In  a  letter  to  Sterling,  Emerson  wrote,  u  All 
thoughts  are  holy  when  they  come  floating  up  to 
us  in  magical  newness  from  the  hidden  life,  and 
'tis  no  wonder  we  are  enamored  and  love-sick  with 
these  until  in  our  devotion  to  particular  beauties 
and  in  our  efforts  at  artificial  disposition  we  lose 
somewhat  of  our  universal  sense  and  the  sovereign 
eye  of  Proportion." 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

grand  forms  but  in  the  polish  and  elabo 
ration  of  the  separate  parts. 

The  Essays  contain  the  harvests  of 
Emerson's  lifetime  ;  plain  food  for  daily 
life,  rare  fruit  and  dainties  for  life's  hol 
idays.  The  quality  is  as  the  product  of 
the  sun's  light  and  warmth  ;  the  form 
is  spontaneous  and  simple,  and  every 
where  expressive  of  the  man.  He  wrote 
when  he  felt  inspired;  when  not,  he 
sought  in  right  living  and  high  thinking 
the  renewal  of  the  sources  of  inspiration. 

The  reserve  of  Emerson's  Essays  is 
is  one  of  their  most  notable  and  instruc 
tive  characteristics.  He  sees  more  than 
he  says.  He  is  like  a  general  overlook 
ing  the  field  of  battle,  determining  the 
strategical  points  and  concentrating  his 
forces  upon  them.  What  he  does  not 
heed  is  not  important  for  a  comprehen 
sion  and  complete  grasp  of  the  situation. 
[200] 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

Some  have  complained  that  one  might 
read  the  Essays  as  well  backward  as 
forward  and  with  equal  profit  and  un 
derstanding.  Then  read  them  so,  I  ad 
vise.  Either  way  it  is  impossible  to  miss 
their  message.  The  reserves  of  Emerson 
are  a  tribute  to  the  reader.  He  does 
not  put  him  to  sleep  with  faultless  but 
empty  periods.  He  stirs  him  with  sal 
lies  of  thought  or  wit  or  expression.  An 
index  to  his  writings  would  probably  fill 
as  many  volumes  as  the  writings  them 
selves.  /  He  has  some  good  thought  in 
terse  and  memorable  phrase  on  every 
subject  that  interests  humanity.  The 
connection  may  not  be  with  each  other  ; 
look  out  for  it  in  your  own  thinking. 
The  stars  shine  far  apart,  nor  otherwise 
would  their  shining  be  so  apparent  and 
impressive ;  yet  who  can  doubt  the  in 
terstellar  spaces  are  also  full  of  light  and 
[201] 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

beauty  ?  So  Emerson's  sentences  often 
rise  on  our  skies,  sometimes  cold  and 
glittering,  sometimes  warm  and  palpita 
ting,  yet  always  reminders  of  the  infinite 
worlds  beyond  them,  the  worlds  where 
the  souls  of  men  are  one  with  the  spirit 
of  truth,  of  beauty  and  holiness. 


[202] 


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